For some years, my husband and I ran Alpha courses at the Military Corrective Training Centre in Colchester. One young man, on his first time at Alpha said, “I don’t think I can forgive some of the things that have happened to me.”
I said, “I have found that when I know I am forgiven it helps me to forgive others.” I then asked if he felt able to tell me one thing he had done that he felt guilty about. “It doesn’t have to be the worst thing,” I explained, “Just something you feel able to tell me.” With his eyes looking at the ground, he did just that.
I then prayed for him, saying, “When Jesus died on that cross, he took the punishment so you can be forgiven,” and I asked the Holy Spirit to take from him all the guilt and shame.
This young man started to breathe deeply and said, “What’s happening?”
As he sat there all the guilt and shame was lifted from him. He was free.
The next week he returned with a note to us trying to explain that he had never experienced anything so wonderful in his life!
He encountered the living God! *Photo credit: https://www.pexels.com/@anntarazevich