I am confident in my ability to pronounce big words when reading them. Not medical words, of course, or words from other languages. But simple big words, like irrevocable. (Contemplative, obstreperous, and ineffable are other words in this category for me.)

So imagine my surprise on Sunday morning when I was reading our text in chapel and couldn’t say the word “irrevocable”.

“How annoying,” I thought. “I’m aging or something.”

Since this was the third time I remember in recent days, it’s easy to get troubled since I am, as I said, confident in my ability. Perhaps I’m falling apart.

A couple days later, I was talking with a person convinced that God cannot forgive the awful things they’ve done. The person is also convinced that as a loved one is cleaning out their house, the house will explode and people will be killed. And it will be this patient’s fault because of the unforgiveable awful things they’ve done.

I heard some of the things. I heard that a family member, “a good person”, had confirmed this unforgiveness of God. I was aware that my medical colleagues accurately were identifying non-spiritual causes to these words and ideas.

But we talked about asking God for forgiveness, which has apparently happened often. And goodness knows, they’ve confessed to several people.

I spoke simply. I pointed out that John said that God was faithful to forgive. I pointed to John’s words that “If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

“Even if I can’t forgive myself,” they asked, “God forgives me?”

“Yes,” I said.

And then I said, “J___, your sins are forgiven, though Jesus.”

“Thank you, Jesus,” they responded.

There will be more loops, I am convinced. There will be more voices, I’m sure. But that idea of being forgiven even if we can’t forgive ourselves is a tiny insight of faith. And a reminder of a love more irrevocable than we think.

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I wrote about speaking forgiveness in “You are forgiven.“