Lisa Barry: Am I speaking to anyone today who is harboring bitterness against someone and it's been there a long time? Maybe you're bitter toward your mother for not being stricter with you, bitter toward a father who was always too busy to play with you. Or maybe you're angry because people with bad morals always seem to be getting ahead, while you can't make ends meet again this month. You'll meet someone on today's Gateway To Joy who had plenty to be bitter about. Find out what she has done about it as Elisabeth welcomes back Glenda Revell to the program. Let's get started.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking again today with my dear friend, Glenda Revell. Glenda, you were telling us, was it yesterday or the day before, that you get a lot of letters from people who are bitter, and perhaps even angry with God, because of something that has happened in their lives. What is your response?

Glenda Revell: First of all, I bring up the fact that we can offer that suffering back to God and that He will receive it and transform it into something far more glorious than we could ever have imagined.

Elisabeth Elliot: Somebody is going to say, "But what do you mean? How do you offer your suffering back to God?"

Glenda Revell: Well, this is how I do it. I didn't just suffer in my past. We all suffer day by day in very small or very large ways. Suppose someone hurts me. They say something that cuts me. Then I get alone with my Father and I just hold out my hands and I imagine that that hurt is in my hands. I just offer it up to Him. "Lord, I offer this to You as a sacrifice. I want You to transform it. Do not allow me to brood over it. Please work forgiveness in my heart and receive this as a sacrifice to You and transform it into whatever pleases You. Do unto me whatever pleases You. I thank You that You allowed this suffering to come, because it brought me to this place."

I can honestly say-and people do look at me very strangely when I say this-but I do thank God for the suffering that He has allowed in my life. C. S. Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain." God had to shout to get my attention. I'm so glad He did, because any trouble that we have in this life is so temporary and so light. It's working in us and through us something far more glorious. So I tell people that one of the first things God had to teach me, besides offering it up to Him, is that forgiveness is essential in letting go.

People tell me frequently, "I really want to let go of my past, but I can't." No. It's usually, "I sort of want to let go of my past, but there is a part of it that I enjoy. It's the self-pity part."

Elisabeth Elliot: And I'm not about to let go of my self-pity, because I was treated unjustly and I don't see any reason in the world why I should have to forgive that person, since they're not even sorry. Might that be the kind of scenario that you have to speak to?

Glenda Revell: Yes. But the Lord showed me in His Word, first of all, through His example. I wasn't sorry for my sin when Christ went to that cross, but He went anyway. People don't have to be sorry in order to earn our forgiveness. We don't earn God's forgiveness and they don't have to earn our forgiveness. But if we, as His children, want the line of communication between us and our dear Father to remain open, He makes clear in His Word, "Don't stand there praying if you have something against someone in your heart. Forgive that person and then pray."

When I saw that the first time, I was smitten because I grew up as an illegitimate child. When I became a child of God and I received a Father, I didn't want anything to stand between my communication with Him. So I learned that I had to forgive those who had committed atrocities against me as a child. People are just incredulous when I talk about forgiving my parents, as if it were some huge undertaking. I didn't do it at all. I just let God do it.

Elisabeth Elliot: Did you have to work through for months, or perhaps years, your anger? I hear about people saying, "You know, I have a lot of things I need to work through." I'm always a little bit edgy when I hear that expression.

Glenda Revell: I think what they need to work through is getting to the place that they're willing to let go of it. Once we are willing to let God do what He wants to do with it, it's done.

Elisabeth Elliot: Finished.

Glenda Revell: Finished. And I did struggle with that, because I too wanted to hold onto little bits and pieces of that pain. What is this sordid pleasure we get out of fondling our pain? I don't know. But when I came to the place where I could say, "Lord, I give it to You. You do with it what pleases You," then He wrought that forgiveness in my heart. It was immediate. I began to see my parents through His eyes, began to love them, and wanted to see them know the same Heavenly Father.

Elisabeth Elliot: I'm sure that many of our listeners use what we Protestants call the Lord's Prayer and what our Catholic friends would call the "Our Father." Perhaps we rattle it off. I would certainly confess that I've rattled it off many times, because we used to say it in our family prayers at home when I was a little child. As long as I can remember, we ended the prayer time with the Lord's Prayer.

Jesus says so clearly in there, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those"-and He doesn't say "as we forgive those who apologize," which you've already pointed out. You don't have to wait until the person comes crawling, saying, "Please forgive me. I hurt you." It's a transaction with God. It's a private transaction with God. But He says that we must pray, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." When He had finished giving His disciples this prayer, then He said, "And if you do not forgive your brother from your heart, neither will My Father in heaven forgive you." That should give us pause.

Glenda Revell: Yes. Sometimes I think people are hindered because they're waiting to feel forgiving. I'm fairly certain that I have never felt forgiving in my life. I don't know what it would feel like. It isn't a feeling. It's a choice. It's a decision we make to be willing to put the past behind us.

Elisabeth Elliot: Thank you for that very necessary, very clear distinction. Would you say it again?

Glenda Revell: Forgiveness is not a feeling. So many other things that we are asked to by God are not feelings. How unjust it would be of God to ask us to work up some sort of feeling of forgiveness, or love, for that matter. It is not a feeling. It is a choice to obey God.

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes. I don't think we can summon good emotions, anymore than we can dismiss bad ones. These are feelings. These are emotions. We need to remember that God created us with two different faculties. One is emotion, which goes up and down and most of us realize are far from being dependable. When people say, "Well, I have to wait till I feel good about that," that could take you an awfully long time if somebody has really sinned against you.

But the two faculties are emotions and will. So what you're talking about is the distinction between those two. I feel pretty bad about what that person said to me or did to me, but I will forgive in the name of Jesus. And remember what Jesus said on the cross.

Glenda Revell: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Hannah Whitall Smith, in THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, states it very clearly. She talks about the fact that we must make our will the king and our emotions the servants.

Elisabeth Elliot: The king? Excuse me, but you said the king?

Glenda Revell: Our will is the king in our being and our emotions are simply the servants. That was a very clear picture for me and helped me to see the difference between what I feel and what I choose to do or not to do. I certainly want to be an obedient child of God. As I grew up, I was not disciplined by my parents. They were also not disciplined. That's a very scary situation in which to grow. When there are no boundaries, they could commit any atrocity against me that came into their heads and I could do anything that came into my head, and they didn't even notice.

Now I have a loving Father, who proves His love to me by the fact that He chastens me. I'm so thankful for that chastening, and sometimes that chastening comes in the form of suffering and pain. Then I have to choose how I'm going to respond to that.

Elisabeth Elliot: Do you have a title for this new book that you're working on?

Glenda Revell: Not yet.

Elisabeth Elliot: Well, I'm sure that many of us are eagerly waiting, because Glenda is a woman with a story that is so far removed from anything that I've ever experienced. I find myself instructed and calmed and helped and encouraged every time I have a chance to be with you, Glenda, and receiving your letters and the sweet letters I get from your children as well. It's just a miracle of grace that God has worked in the Revell family of Smithfield, Virginia. I'm so glad you could be here with us. You have mentioned offering our suffering to God. Romans 12:1 should be helpful to those that need a Scripture verse to hang onto, that we are to present our bodies as-

Glenda Revell: "A living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable act of service." It's the least we can do. I had a pastor who pointed that verse out to me many years ago. "Have you ever offered your body as a living sacrifice?" Well, no, I'd never heard of that. But where's the altar? I'll get on it. I'm so thankful that he taught me that, because each step of obedience opens up more of God to us.

Elisabeth Elliot: Thank you, Glenda.

Glenda Revell: Thank you.

Lisa Barry: Well, I love to be the one to tell a secret, and so here is that book title. Glenda's book is called WITH LOVE FROM A MOTHER'S HEART. It's an important part of our Mother's Day packet this year. Along with Glenda's book, you also get tapes that we'll begin to air next week, a flip calendar by Elisabeth, and the booklets DO THE NEXT THING and CALL TO SPIRITUAL MOTHERHOOD.

You can find out more about the gift packet by calling us here at 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Or you can write to us at Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Be with us on Monday when Elisabeth begins a great new series on THE HOLY WORK OF MOTHERING. That's next time on Gateway To Joy.