Forgiveness Part II

My wife, Mary, and I enjoy marriage mentoring. Mentoring is where a couple meets with another couple and basically says, "This is what we do." Mentoring does not replace counseling, but it can be very good in communicating relationship skills, especially to young couples just starting out their lives together. After I talk about one mentoring program, I want to discuss the very important situation of where forgiveness seems to wear out because the displeasing behaviour continues.

One of the best mentoring programs is Marriage Savers. Mary, who is a program director with a non-profit, had a grant to bring a marriage mentoring program to South Carolina. We took Marriage Savers to small groups in 6 cities, and many of the churches and groups we trained are still mentoring young couples. I wish I could say that I trained; actually, I made some really great coffee, which I could go on about, but that's not our purpose. (Mary can really stretch a dollar - she did 6 cities where most programs did one.)

Mike and Harriet McManus are the Co-Founders of Marriage Savers, and brought their excellent training to our groups. Basically, the idea is to set up mentoring couples in churches, and to have pastors in a community agree that every couple seeking to be married will have a specified minimum amount of pre-marital counseling or mentoring. It has been thoroughly enjoyable for every mentoring couple I know, and it benefits the young couples involved. The results for Marriage Savers are phenomenal; there is a measurable impact on the divorce rate in many areas of our country where communities have embraced the program in big way.

If Mary and I are talking to a married couple who has some difficulty in their relationship, we practice with them keeping short accounts. That's agreeing with your adversary quickly, "in the way" as described in Jesus' illustration, the subject of a previous blog. We emphasize the pain of not resolving "in the way", and that pain is like a debtor's prison from which we don't emerge until the least cent (or most minuscule infraction) is dearly paid for.

We don't believe in couples coming to let counselors fix their spouses. They gather up all the infractions for the week, and lay them at the counselor's feet. The goal of mentoring is to get couples to talk to each other. They ask forgiveness for known offenses. Pretty soon, they do it before they meet with their mentoring couple.

But inevitably, couples who have relationship difficulties tire of this forgiveness. It is normal. We see it in the New Testament gospels, where Peter said to Jesus, "How many times should I forgive my brother--seven times?" To this, Jesus responded, "No, until seventy times seven." In other words, don't keep count. The important truth from this that applies to all couples, young and old, is that change in a partner won't come as quickly as we think it should. It may not come in a way that we can measure. But change will come.

The change comes when a person has other people who are committed to his success, who hold him (or her) accountable. That person is in a good church where there is an emphasis on change, such as is embodied in the verse in Paul's Letter to the Romans, chapter 12 (my paraphrase): "And don't conform to this contemporary culture, but let yourself be changed by restructuring the way you think--then you will discover your Creator's most beneficial will for your life, that which brings wholeness and purpose."

Counseling is great--I don't put it down. Counselors must deal with deep-seated issues, and walk people through the process of getting out of a communication breakdown that may seem hopeless. Our church in Charleston refers families to a really great counseling center, Low Country Biblical Counseling Center.

Mentoring involves education, coaching and sharing real life experiences with another couple who recognizes that the two of you are no different from them, that is, you are vulnerable to all the same pitfalls in relationships. Mentoring will strengthen both marriages and will help couples looking towards marriage get off to a great start. Plus they know at least one understanding couple they can go to when times are tough.