Before ever his brothers came to Egypt,
Joseph had forgiven . . . forgiven so deeply
that he had entered
God's Sovereign Plan.

He was ruling Egypt's wealth with
all the privileges earned by his
unimaginable surrender.

Before the years of famine came,
two sons were born to Joseph.
Gen. 41:40

Joseph gave his sons significant names that
unveiled the secret story
of his traumatic journey to forgiveness.

Joseph named his first son Manasseh and said,
"It is because God has made me forget all my trouble
and all my father's household."

Joseph had made his peace with God
through abject surrender in the
struggle of a relationship with the Divine.

He was at last willing to be removed from the family
from which God had removed him.
He was building a new family in
his alien home.

 
The whole story is told by those names.
Profound acceptance lies behind them . . . 
and surrender in the extreme.
 

God has made me forget . . . .

 
The vow to forgive puts the offense in God's hand.
Then - only then - He extracts the terrible pain from your soul,
and when the pain is "forgotten" from a memory,
the memory itself is irrelevant.

" . . . those who suffer in accordance with the will of God
shall entrust their souls to a
faithful Creator in doing what is right."
I Peter 4:19 NAS

God heals the soul of the one who forgives.

To remember the incident is still possible
but when the pain is gone,
what matters the wrong?

Jospeh was not trapped by anguish of the past
in a cage of bitterness,
so the bars in his unjust prison finally opened.
He was released into his astonishing "now"
and became fully involved in the joy of his present.

Forgetting the pain . . . that is the miracle of complete
forgiveness, the fruit of God's grace,
deeply imbibed by Joseph and
permeating to the marrow of his soul.

Mark the cause of Joseph's forgetting.
Not his own character, not teeth grinding effort,
not mental self-trickery.

God has made me forget . . . .
 
It might be a great human stretch to forgive such
heinous treatment
but to forget? To be free of the terrible suffering?
That is God alone. He bears the hurt so
the memory is never
intruding itself into today's adventure
to ruin it.

 
God, the Father of Unending Graciousness
who longs to forgive
and who commits to forget!

You don't try to forget, in forgiving truly,
by intimate dealings with God,
you will forget.

 
This Amazing God extracted from Joseph
the excruciating sorrow and anger.
As Joseph bowed and clutched Him in
desperate pain,
God infused him with
His own Divine Forgetting.

. . . all my trouble . . .

Such trouble as Joseph had makes any
suffering pale by comparison.
Joseph as our standard, our example of
forgiveness, shames us all.

"God has made me forget
all my trouble and
all my father's household."

Joseph, thrown out of his family . . . by his family!
Great cause of anguish to a Hebrew boy.
For the Hebrew man, family was the bedrock
of life, the circle of identity.
The only sphere of God's blessing.

Joseph was taken from his family and
Joseph let his family go.

What God took, Joseph gave.
That! That, Beloved, is
trust that births forgiveness!

 
All my trouble
all my family . . . .

 
All.
Tiny word speaking volumes,
an inclusive and total acceptance by
God's grace through His intimate presence,
given to a Joseph who sought Him
as the only solution.

 
To hurts and wrongs, God is the only hope
of personal survival and
final triumph,
and "forgetting" is the proof of
authentic forgiving.
 

The second son he named Ephraim and said,
"It is because God has made me
fruitful in the land of my suffering." 
 

Offenses are the seed and hope of my Destined Fruit.
They hold the power of my spiritual prosperity
and the secret of God's unimaginable plan for
His own vindication to me!
Vindication to prove His Love
and Faithfulness to me . . .
by the unfolding of His purpose
hidden in the offenses.
A purpose for my blessing, ONLY.

 
Assault, neglect, betrayal, rejection, violence,
all God's crucible of preparation . . .  
to bless.

Offenses plow the dirt of my soul in furrows
I would never choose.

God plants the seed of His Idea
in that raw earth
of my raked soul
but the release of its life and the
fullness of its fruit depends entirely
on my forgiving
and the nurture of my spirit
before Him
in Him
with Him.

 
All this victory, all this forgiveness
came before
the famine.

When the famine of Pharaoh's dream
and of Joseph's interpretation arrived,
it spread even to Canaan
and captured the tribe of Jacob-Israel.

Starvation covered that entire world and
Joseph was the sole source of survival.

The "only one" ready by virtue
of his ability to know God's mind
by the long practice of
urgent listening.

 
Joseph ruled as a whole and healed man,
made rich by his surrender and
reigning over his enemies
by the blessing of
Sovereign Intervention.

Few of us ever make it out of the prison of
Potiphar's wife: the disgrace and slander
of her revenge against righteousness.

 
One thing to be imprisoned guilty,
quite another, innocent.

 
Rarely does one so forgive that he is free of
the pain of resistance.

And oh so seldom does one become
fruitful in the very place of his oppression
and even master of his oppressors.

 
Such is the reward of the work of forgiveness
and the prosperity in life it yields . . .
And! the promise of future reign
with Christ.

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2001© Martha Kilpatrick