Two Hearts Are Healed

Amazonian Wednesdays 🌴

September 2004
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“May I say something briefly?” Wagner, one of our main adult leaders asked this question at the end of a teaching I had just given at our recent Encounter weekend. I had spoken on God’s plan to restore and heal the youth’s broken families and the importance of them making a decision to forgive their parents for hurts experienced in their childhood. I trust Wagner, and was glad to give him the floor. 

Wagner’s voice trembled as he began, “As Pastora Jennifer was teaching, the Holy Spirit was doing a work in me. I want to take this opportunity to ask forgiveness of my daughter, Beatriz [who was present]. Beatriz, when I was a little boy, I was abandoned. And I know that I did the same thing to you. For a long time I’ve wanted to say this to you, but I didn’t know how. I want you to know that I love you, and I want to ask you to forgive me. Will you come here, please?” 

Beatriz immediately walked up to the front and embraced her dad. Though they are both part of our church, Beatriz does not live with her father because she was born to a woman that is not Wagner’s wife before Wagner came to know the Lord.

Beatriz later shared with me how she had grown up feeling very alone and rejected, as her mother had been with five different men and had a child from each relationship. Her mom often ignored her, giving preference to her current boyfriend, and sometimes did not even provide food for Beatriz and her siblings. And her father Wagner had not been in the picture much at all. 

All of this changed at our Encounter weekend, held the first weekend of this month. As Wagner and Beatriz embraced, they both wept deeply as the Holy Spirit washed over them and cleansed their hearts from guilt and rejection. The sound of Wagner’s sobs filled the air, and soon all of the young people present were crying too. They began to call out to the Lord about their own hurts and receive His healing.

In that meeting, all of them made the decision to forgive their parents for similar woundings. We did not even have any music playing to “get them in the mood,” and they were laying all over the floor, weeping and receiving from the Lord. When they stood up at the end of the service, they were changed. Their faces glowed with a new freedom and peace. They were eager to get home and give their moms and dads a big hug and tell them how much they loved them.

We thank God for the sovereign work He did in these youths’ lives. May their families indeed be restored and saved!