Forgiveness and Satan

Today I got a phone call that I wasn’t expecting. Since my home phone is also my work phone, I answered, “Hello. This is Hillary.” The man on the phone asked if this was Hillary Hart and I said, “Yes”- since I am Southern and will always go by my maiden name, too. He went on to warn me in advance that this was going to be an awkward phone call.

He told me who he was and it was a person whose name I recognized from my home town, but I hadn’t thought or heard about in over a decade. He went on to tell me that he had become a Christian about 7 years ago and was still building his relationship with God. He had recently felt compelled to talk with some people he had wronged in his past and apologize. He said that for a while he had been in a dark place with alcohol and drugs and had done some stupid things.

When we were in high school, he had gotten wasted one night and decided to go break into some cars and steal some CDs. He was later arrested for possessing stolen property, but not for stealing it. He went down to the courthouse recently, though, and found my name as a person who had listed the stolen property and wanted to call to apologize.

As I slowly realized where I fit into this story, I was taken back to that time. We had just moved to our new house and I was a senior in high school. We lived in a great neighborhood- about a block away from my high school in the suburbs- and I had some CDs and a CD player stolen one night. Dad reported them missing to the police and they were returned to me in a few weeks. They had someone else’s initials written on them- and I can see them right now in my mind- but I had never known whose initials they were until today. When they were returned, I used nail polish remover to remove the offending initials and my CD case smelled like a nail shop for a while; that I distinctly remember. All the other details are a blur.

Immediately I felt empathetic for this grown man who was calling to apologize for a 14 year old sin. At one point in my life, I think I would have felt revengeful or fulfilled, but I felt a strong connection to him. The reason is because about 6 months ago I e-mailed some dear friends to apologize for something that I said to them in passing in our sorority house kitchen. They didn’t remember it at all, but my negative words had made a lasting impact on me and were defining how I viewed our relationship and my relationship with Christ. I had denigrated their Christian group and I was still feeling guilty for it. I had asked for forgiveness a dozen times and repented, but it was still nagging me. After I e-mailed those sweet, dear friends and talked with each of them, I realized that it wasn’t them, or God who hadn’t forgiven me. I was forgiven. But it was Satan who kept bringing it into my head that I wasn’t good enough to be a Child of God. Those thoughts of, “You did ___ before; how do you call yourself a Christian” would creep into the dark places and still can if I don’t stand guard against them. The truth is that we are always going to be sinners- no matter what the sin- and Jesus covered our sins long ago.

As I shared this story with my caller, I told him that my biggest revelation hadn’t been asking the other people for forgiveness (which DID help), but it was realizing that I wasn’t going to give Satan power over my past any longer. He had already had enough influence there when it happened and he wasn’t going to have any more. God’s forgiveness is bigger than Satan.

My caller was choking up on those words and he told me how grateful he was to have talked to me. We fumbled through a few more niceties, me joking about a Dave Matthews CD (I make jokes when I don’t know what else to say) and then got off the phone.

I truly feel like God knew that this person needed to talk to me today. Not that any glory needs to go to me- ALL to an awesome and loving God. But I think the man who was living with his past as a definition of himself made the same connection I did a few months ago. That God is more powerful than even the dirtiest and worst things that you have done. He can wipe your slate clean. He can give you a new definition: Child of the King.