Certainly, we experience the love of God through suffering, pain, and loss—but what about when we are the ones who have caused the pain, the ones who need forgiveness? I think the realization that we have hurt someone, that we need their forgiveness, is where love begins. When we're willing to suffer any abuse, weather any rebuke in order to be reconciled, I think we start to understand both our need for grace and God's love for us in new ways.

It's the worst feeling in the world to let down those we love. For whatever reason, we think that in this area, at least, we should be sufficient, infallible. Because of this, the guilt and anger are hard to let go of. But we have to, don't we? 

TRANSCRIPT: I have three daughters and a son, and I was an estranged father for nine years of their life. I was completely out of the picture. After I got saved and got out of prison and started living right, I began the challenge of rebuilding that communication between me and my kids. My three daughters are all on board with that, and I'm very close to all three of them. And, I have a son that to this day doesn't want anything to do with me and was hurt and damaged by the fact that I was gone out of his life for so many years. 

What I've learned is—the last time I tried to talk to my son and he wouldn't have anything to do with me, what came out of mouth was kind of like a Holy Spirit thing that I wasn't intending to say ... and didn't really come from me at all. To me it was what God was trying to teach me at that time. What I told my son as he walked away from me was, "You can't hate me enough to make me stop loving you." When I said that I realized that was a God thing, because I had been an enemy of God for a big portion of my life and God didn't stop loving me.