Books For Christian - You Too Can Be Forgiven

Publisher: Whitaker House
ISBN: 0883680823
Pages: 204
Book Type: Paperback
Size: 0.58 x 6.90 x 4.16 inches
Released Date: April 1996

Reviews
Table Of Contents

Description:
Multitudes of men and women harbor deep guilt over past actions and relationships. Few realize that true cleansing and forgiveness can be found through the incomprehensible love of God. Here, Myrle Morris reveals the grace and mercy that can transform heartache and guilt into forgiveness and joy.

1. "A Big Mistake"
2. Childhood Days
3. Easy Target for a Dare
4. The Runaway
5. The Heart is a Rebel
6. Shifting Sand
7. The Tall Stranger
8. Beyond My Reach
9. The 900 Club
10. The Mountain Man
11. Booze in the Snow
12. Kidnapped
13. The Faltering Step
14. God is Bigger Than Cancer
15. The Day of My Death
16. Living Water
17. Tommy, Another Gift
18. Our Halfway Meeting
19. The Power of Submission
20. Leaving the World Behind
21. From Death to Life
22. God and the Housing Shortage
23. Twenty-Twenty Vision
24. An Old Enemy
25. The Big Move
26. Trial by Fire
27. The Crushing Weight
28. Don't Cry Anymore
29. A New Beginning
30. A Whisper From Heaven
Epilog

I was always running away.
When I was a teenager I wanted to do my own thing. Frustrated by parental authority, I ran away from home.
That was only the beginning of my flight. I kept on running. Every time I was crossed, when things didn't flow my way, I would take off. Many times Daddy begged me to quit running away from life's problems and my inability to cope with them. But running away was my only means of escaping life's perplexities.
The time back in the summer of 1968 was no exception. My husband, Calvin, and I weren't getting along. We had a big fight and I ran away, on the spur of the moment, with some old drinking buddies. We went to California and spent three weeks making the round of local bars and nightclubs. We were drunk most of the time. But sometimes I sobered up long enough to hate myself for the kind of life I was living.
I was so homesick and miserable. "Maybe things will be different if I go back home," I thought. I missed Calvin and our son, Calvin, Jr. I even missed his daughter by another marriage, Mary Sue.
"I'm such a failure," I said to myself. "I'm a flop as a wife and a mother. I can't even make it as a human being!"
But when I returned home in September, nothing had changed. I was just as unhappy on the farm in Ohio as I had been in California. Location -- a change of scene -- was not the answer to my life of sin. Plans of killing Calvin and the children, then myself, began to surface until I could think of little else.
January 1, 1969, would be the day of my death. I wrote the suicide letter in September, shortly upon my return from the west coast. "Let the children have one more Christmas before I kill them," I decided.
A lot of bitter memories crowded my mind that warm September day as I sat, pen in hand and hostility in my heart, writing my final farewell. The house was quiet. Calvin and the kids had gone to town, leaving me alone with my dark and turbulent plans.
"To whomever might be interested," I began writing. "Not that anyone will care," I reflected angrily to myself.
I continued to write, in a hurry to finish before the family returned. Hating myself and the whole wide world, I penned, "Perhaps you are wondering as you look at my dead body and the bodies of my two children and my husband, 'How could anyone do such a thing?'
"Well, it's like this. When you get so low that no one can stand the sight of you because of the way you have lived, and your family hates you and you hate them, and you can't drink enough booze or take enough pills to block out the guilt, then you have to do something.
"I'm going insane, I know. I've known it for some time. I also know that murder and suicide are sending me to hell. The reason I waited until today to do this is only that I wanted my kids to have one more Christmas. Please don't hate me too much for what I have done. I just cannot go on any longer. We are all better off dead.
"I have had a lot of heartbreak, a lot of regrets. More than anyone will ever know. It's an awful thing to look in the mirror and hate the sight you see. Many of the things that happened to me were my fault. Some were not. Facing reality has been very hard for me.
"I am just no good for myself or anyone else. I've caused enough misery. As you can see, by using Calvin's shotgun, I chose the quickest and most merciful way to end it all. None of us suffered any; it was all over in just a few moments. The children will go to heaven and be better off. Hating Calvin, because he doesn't love me, I decided to kill him, too.
"Everyone will be sorry now for what they have done to me. I wonder though if anyone will even bother to come to my funeral.
"I hope you never forget what you have seen or read here today! I don't want to be like this, but I can't help it. Oh, if only I hadn't taken that first drink! The pain and sorrow I've caused my parents and loved ones, I regret. I can still see the tears in my poor old Daddy's eyes, as he tried to talk to me. But I am past listening to anyone. I'm headed for destruction, and I don't care."
I signed the letter "A Big Mistake."
I folded the white sheet of paper and carefully locked it away in my jewelry box in the top drawer of my dresser. It would be safe there. No one would find it until I took it out New Year's Day.
I went to the kitchen, poured myself a shot of whiskey, gulped it down and cried aloud, "Why was I born?" I smashed the glass against the wall and began to weep.
That was some eight years ago.
Today, I am happy. My past is healed by God's grace.
Knowing His forgiveness and the peace that passes all human understanding has made it possible for me to face the sunrise of each new day, take my responsibilities in hand and get on with the business of living the life He has so lovingly given me.
I think that you will agree, after reading my story, that with God all things are indeed possible. And I am talking specifically about the miracle of making something beautiful out of a deformed piece of clay. That was me. Deformed. Myrle Morris: alcoholic, thief, brawler, blasphemer, fornicator, drug user and murderess. With Paul I can readily say:

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life" (I Timothy 1:15-16 NIV).

God's gift of forgiveness in Jesus Christ, his Son, has set me free from the inside out. I know I'm an example of His unlimited grace. Believe me when I tell you that I have shared my life with you only for your encouragement and education. God forgives! There is nothing you or I have ever done that will keep us from His incomprehensible mercy. I know. I've been in my own personal hell, but today I'm breathing the air of His pure love.
Today, I stand FORGIVEN! And you can, too.