-Terri Fornear
Step 9 – Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. – James 5:16
I love this verse because God is telling us to say sorry to each other because we have the gift of “right-ness” in us so we do not need to defend or hide. We are okay all day long, even when we have hurt ourselves and others. Jesus’ blood is so loud over us all day long – when we are doing it right and when we are doing it wrong.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense— Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. – 1 John 2:1-2
Doing Step 9
My work in Step 5 in naming my EXACT wrong will help me with Step 9. It’s so easy for me to have a false humility that says I am sorry for anything and everything so I can have a false peace in the situation. Sometimes I’d rather be wrong than honest! The exact wrong helps me to look at what my flesh has done to hurt another person.
For an example, I will use a situation with my husband, Joe, when I corrected him abruptly during a meeting. In this case, because of walking in fear or anxiety (my #1 flesh issue), I cut him off and blamed him for something that wasn’t right. I could tell it bothered him. So what was the exact nature of the wrong that I did to him? I was judgmental, critical, short and disrespectful.
Making a Direct Amend
Now while it is good for me to know the roots of my hurtful actions, this is not the time to explain to Joe why I disrespected him. So I want to go to him and simply say, “I’m sorry for rudely correcting you in that meeting. That was unkind of me. Will you forgive me?” Then I should listen to his hurt and feelings about how I treated him.
Making a sincere direct amends is my part in experiencing freedom and building bridges with those I hurt.
Find out how Terri applies God’s Word to “situations” in life. Her book, Dealing with Feelings, is part of our free gift basket to cancer patients.
