I didn't realise!!!

A couple of weeks ago my car was vandalised. I had some idea as to the group of people the vandals may have been apart of. It was kids we had been providing a service to. When it happened I was too tired to worry too much if i'm honest and I also felt an overwhelming sense of.........pity's not the right word.........love (?) for the 'vandals'. Either way my concern was for those children who had done it as I felt sorry that they hadn't got parents who expected them in at 11 o'clock at night. I think when someone (regardless of their age) vandalises someone elses property it says more about their view of themselves, than the person who is the 'victim'.



Anyhoo, yesterday I visited a friend that I hadn't seen since the car thing and they said 'I heard you forgave the kids that did that to your car'. The weird thing is...until my friend said that I didn't even realise that that is what I had done!! But I have! And I did it without much agonising and thought really, it just seemed the right thing to do. God is changing me - I'm not sure that I would have done the same thing a few months ago. I'd have probably felt hard done by, bitter and like it was a personal attack.Yet I didn't because not long after we had found my car in that state I had been able to pray with a group of people for the children who had done it. During that short prayer session I felt my heart go from stone to feather, I felt the bitterness that had begun to settle within me, leave. And I'm thankful to God for that.



So two things have come from this experience and the conversation yesterday:

1) I can and I am forgiving more, I now need to recognise when I am doing it (I really had no idea that I had forgiven them)
2) God is changing me from the inside out in such a caring way that I haven't noticed it all, this is good in that I do not feel assaulted and forcefully moulded but it also means that I need to concentrate more on God and His plans for me.

My car got vandalised - so what?? My heart is being repaired. Praise the Lord!!