eventful?

Tonight I have to give a talk. It's a bit annoying that I was only told yesterday and it's going to be in German. I had my doubts about whether it was right to do it, but there are so few people here prepared or capable to stand up and talk that if I don't do it, it won't get done. Even if the fact that it's in German to a whole bunch of Germans - many of whom study German - is TERRIFYING.

It's at my SMD group's end of semester party where we look back on what's been and look forward, but after a bit of pressure from more outward-looking members it's going to be somewhere where friends can be invited. In this setting, I am going to talk about forgiveness and how I have had to learn a huge deal about forgiving people in the last few months. More than learning German, more than learning more from books of the Bible, more than getting to know people from cold; forgiveness has been something I've realised comes so unnaturally that I have had to learn and re-learn the lessons that I keep messing up.

What I am going to say follows this rough structure. Looking back over the semester, as I have seen, forgiveness is the thing I have had to learn most acutely and recurringly. Often it's because I set too high expectations on people and when they fall short I am disappointed and then have to forgive them, at least in my head. But when someone wrongs me I am hurt and I want others to know what they have done and what they are therefore like. As a Christian, I know I should live out forgiveness and love, but that often sounds so hollow when there is so much hurt inside me. What do I do with the inward hurt which keeps biting me? Reading in the Bible, in Colossians 3:13 Paul urges us to live out forgiveness. That's all very well. But he goes on to urge it because we have been forgiven. And not just by any old person, or even our best friend or parent. By God. And if I recognise I have been forgiven, I have recognised that I have done something that merits forgiveness, and so I begin to look at myself differently. I can no longer claim the moral high ground against a fellow human being when I have put myself in a position to need forgiveness from God. And so once I have begun to appreciate this, Christianity no longer becomes living under rules, but living in freedom: living under GRACE. I am now free to forgive because I have been forgiven. I am now free to love because I have been and am being loved.

On a more mundane, untheological note, someone just came round to my door and made me stump up money for radio licence even though I don't have a radio. Annoying. Apparently the Internet counts as one, even though I don't listen to the radio there much at all. Boo. But at least I'm legal. And when I had to talk to the man it wasn't a problem at all. I bet that's how a bilingual person feels ALL the time apart from it's just so normal to switch between languages they don't even bat an eyelid. When I do make the switch and the effort isn't so great, the effect delights me so much I get caught up in it and then make mistakes. Gutted.

Now I must go and catch the U-Bahn so I can go and speak PUBLICLY in German. Yikes!!