I had a dream a week ago that rocked me. It really was about rocks. I was on a rocky island in the middle of a raging ocean. All alone and knowing I would die there if something didn’t change. Then, out of the blue, my dad swam up with two inner tubes, the old kind of inner tubes we used when I was a kid at the lake with my family. Large rubber tire inner tubes. Dad told me to get on the tube, that he would take me to shore. Suddenly beyond my dad, I spotted another little island that wasn’t there before, this one with a tiny beach and two palm trees. The little island looked so much better than my island of rocks.

I could swim to that island by myself. Maybe I would make it, maybe I wouldn’t, but it sure looked better than going with my dad on those old inner tubes. Sharks filled the water and the sky was thick with storm clouds. The ocean was so frightening. I hated the rocks I was living on. I decided I was going to try to make it to that little island in the distance. I would only have to count on myself. I didn’t have to trust my dad to save me. But when I started for the island, to my surprise, I found myself on one of those inner tubes swimming with Dad in the opposite direction towards a shore we couldn’t see.

My dad was pulling me along with him in his inner tube through shark-infested waters. Death seemed inevitable in that raging sea. And then my dad morphed into my husband, Scott.

My husband was the one rescuing me now. And I was filled with anxiety. I couldn’t trust these two men. But I had to trust them now because my rocks were gone. The inner tube was all I had left. My dad and husband were my only hope for safety.

And then suddenly sand was beneath my feet and Scott and I stood up on a radiant shore of a wide and beautiful land. The dark ocean was behind us. The inner tubes floated away. We stood on that heavenly shore together surrounded by God’s warm, white light.

I awoke from the dream not really knowing what it meant, but certain God was trying to tell me something. It was Sunday morning and off we went to church.

The title of the sermon that day was “Drop the Rocks.” I about dropped my teeth. That little rocky island I lived on in my dream came to mind. The sermon was about the men set on stoning the woman caught in adultery in the Bible and Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

The heart of the sermon was forgiveness. I realized right then I held unforgiveness in my heart towards my dad and my husband. I still blamed them for some painful things that happened to me when I was a teenager. I wrote about it in Farming Grace. It’s too long to tell here, but in a nutshell, when I was 19 years old, my dad kicked me out of the house because he caught me in bed with my then boyfriend, Scott.

I was desperately in love with Scott. He was my first honest to goodness boyfriend and I wanted to marry him. When my dad kicked me out, I went to live with Scott. It lasted three days, then Scott broke up with me, saying, “I can’t do this. I don’t want to be in a serious relationship with you. I want to see other girls.”

Devastated, I moved to Reno, Nevada alone and the course of my life drastically changed. And not for the better. Bad things happened. The school of hard knocks knocked my socks off.

And yet, eventually, Scott and I got back together and married and had seven kids. We didn’t really hash out our past before marrying, we just moved into our future and hoped for the best. But twenty-five years into our marriage our past came roaring back into my heart and mind seemingly out of nowhere. It was so weird. I had a breakdown. It’s kind of a long story. I tell all in my memoir.

I thought I’d made peace with my past after finishing Farming Grace, but that dream showed me I still blamed my dad and Scott for the bad things that happened in Reno.

God wanted to get me off these rocks of unforgiveness I’d lived on for a quarter of a century. So I went and knelt at the altar and asked the Lord to heal me of unforgiveness.

At the altar, the Lord showed me I didn’t have to choose that sinful path in Reno just because my dad and husband had abandoned me. I could have set my sights on Jesus and obeyed God back then and went down a good path instead of going down that dark path alone.

And since the altar after confessing my unforgiveness my heart feels lighter. I don’t carry that weight anymore. The truth has set me free.

Do you need to be healed of unforgiveness you hold against someone you love? It’s amazing that we can love someone for years and yet still harbor unforgiveness in our hearts towards them.

Maybe like me, it’s your husband or your dad you need to forgive. Or maybe it’s your mom or your sister or even your own kids. Just because we love someone doesn’t mean we are in a good place with them.

Any marriage can become a rocky island when we don’t forgive our spouse. Truly and deeply forgive them and this kind of forgiveness can only come from God. We can’t rescue ourselves. God has to put us on that inner tube of grace. If you’re like me it just feels safer to swim to an upgraded island. You don’t have to trust anyone else with your healing. That’s too risky because people really aren’t trustworthy, right?

Human beings fail each other. It happens all the time. And the people we love the most can hurt us the most. But God is trustworthy. He helps us forgive others and that forgiveness sets us free to deeply and truly love our people.

The photo below is of my dad and me at my book signing this past weekend. I am grateful Dad let me write his story too in Farming Grace. Family relationships can be our hardest relationships. But they can also be our richest relationships if we invite Jesus in to help us heal together.