Good morning. Doris Louise Seger was a noteworthy Christian author of the 60s & 70s. While she wrote on a variety of Christian topics, she was most known for her books centered on ministering to children and teens. What was less known about her, away from her home church anyway, was that she was also an accomplished violinist.
On a bright Sunday afternoon in the early 70s Doris returned to church to rehearse again for the concert that would be held that evening which would include a few pieces of classical Christian music from her violin. As she entered her church’s worship area, she could see that the instruments for the concert were in place, but as she drew closer, she could see a mess on the floor. That mess turned out to be her violin. She was heartbroken. The instrument had been given to her 50 years earlier as her high-school graduation gift from her parents and now it was broken into pieces and scattered on the floor. She had practiced many hundreds of hours with it and performed in several concerts. As she looked upon the broken pieces, she felt like she was experiencing the death of an old friend.
A few days later she was asked to come by the Pastor’s office. When she arrived, she found the pastor and an eleven year-old boy named Joey, who was in tears. It turned out that the boy’s parents had wanted him to play the violin and had been using Doris’s expert playing as an example to motivate him. Instead, he became increasingly bitter. He had made his way to church earlier that Sunday with the single intention of breaking Doris’ violin and ending what he felt were unfair comparisons and expectations.
It wasn’t clever detective work that uncovered the culprit who had broken the violin. Rather, it was Joey’s shame and grief over what he had done. He had come to the pastor to confess and ask what could be done. It was decided that the boy could come by Doris’ home a couple of times a week and help her with chores. After some weeks of coming by her home and helping with the lawn, windows, and the like, Joey finally asked her if she could ever forgive him. “Why Joey,” she told him, “you’ve already been forgiven. Helping me out here isn’t about earning forgiveness, it is only a chance for you to better understand.”
At the end of the summer a few things had changed. Doris had taken Joey on as a violin student and he had decided to accept not only her forgiveness, but also that of his Savior Jesus. His one request was that it be Doris Louise Seger who baptized him.
Doris would later say that sharing that moment with Joey in the waters of baptism was worth far more to her than her violin, although it had been her greatest treasure. As the years passed Doris and Joey played together in several concerts and shared their testimony. What they wanted to share was the empowering nature of forgiveness. For Joey, knowing that Christian love could bring such honest forgiveness into his life changed his direction, and he became a youth pastor. For Doris, she would say how much she struggled with anger in those first few days after the loss of her instrument. She didn’t know how she could forgive an act that seemed so senseless and cruel. But then she met Joey and found that in forgiving him she too was empowered. She knew that her forgiveness of him was genuine, and that it couldn’t have come from her own angry heart. The Lord had worked through her and revealed His power to forgive and to love.
Doris would say that through her experience in learning the power of forgiving another person, the truth revealed in Psalm 40:3 became very real to her: “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.”
Our thought for this day is to consider the power in forgiving another person. To do so is like opening a locked doorway of your heart and letting the Lord come inside. To refuse to do so is to cling to an anger and bitterness that will only damage and destroy the one who already feels that they have been harmed. We forgive because the Lord forgives us. We forgive because the Lord’s love is alive within us. We forgive because we know the joy of having our hearts set free. We forgive to honor Him who forgives, who loves, who saves, and sings within our heart.
Vern