Emily Gilbert heard the hospital door squeak open. Shifting uneasily on her hospital bed, she turned to see who was at the door.

She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw her husband George, whom she had not seen for the past nine months staring at her.

She felt a mixture of emotions rush through her veins as her face tightened up.

She didn’t know whether to be angry at him for cheating on her and deserting her all those months, or to be happy for his return.

Ashamed, George walked slowly towards her and knelt beside her bed, putting his head on the bed and placing her right hand on his head.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, weeping softly.

“Please, forgive me”.

Emily gazed at him with sorrowful eyes as memories of the event that occured that fateful day he left home came flooding back.

She was in the kitchen trying to unpack the items she had bought from the grocery store, when her phone beeped in the living room.

Picking up the phone, she saw a text message that sent her shivers down her spine.

Her hands trembled as she read the words:

“You don’t know me, but I just want to inform you that I’m no longer dating your husband, George….I now know what we did was wrong. I’m sorry for any pain I may have caused you. Do forgive me.”

Emily sank into a chairs as she tried to make sense of the text. Slowly, the message hit home. Until that point, she had felt everything was OK with her marriage.

She had believed George when he gave excuses of busy and exacting office schedules as reasons for his late nights and frequent travels.

She had never for once thought that he could be cheating on her.

Why would she?

After all, they were Christians, she had thought.

Now, it was all clear to her.

When George returned home from work that night, Emily confronted him about the text message, but he denied it vehement. Emily would not stop there.

She wanted to get to the bottom of the matter. So she demanded to go through his phone logs, messages and contacts, raising her obviously exasperated voice at him.

Irked by his wife effrontery, George lost his cool, and before you know it, they started exchanging angry and unpleasant words.

Emily accused him of infidelity and dishonesty, while he accused her of nagging and ingratitude. Visibly angry, he picked up a few of his clothes and stormed out of the house, not knowing she was two weeks pregnant.

Now, after nine months, he’d returned a changed man, seeking to reunite with his wife who was hospitalized due to complications in her pregnancy. She had had a caesarian section, and had lost the baby.

Emily could not hold back her tears. “I am sorry, sweetheart,” George whispered softly.

“You are sorry?” She retorted, pushing him away from her.

“Do you have any idea of the pains you’ve put me through these months: the loneliness, the humiliation of being a single mother, and the anguish of losing a child? No, I don’t think you do! Because if you did, you wouldn’t have guts to walk in here and ask for my forgiveness! Who forgives such inhumanity?” She asked rhetorically.

“Jesus does,” a voice answered from behind. It was George’s pastor who had been standing at the door all the while.

He came closer to Emily’s beside and said to her, “Jesus forgave all your sins and made you a new creature. This same Jesus has now forgiven George’s sins and made him a new creature too.”

He paused for a while and then continued, “Although what he put you through is very painful, Jesus wants you to forgive his wrongs, just as He has forgiven him those wrongs and He forgave your wrongs. Forgive others as He forgave you. That’s His command. Please, don’t disappoint Him.”

The pastor’s words cut deep into Emily as if dagger struck her heart. She wept uncontrollably again, but this time, George wept aloud too because he knew he had hurt her very deeply.

They wept profusely not just because they were filled with remorse, but also because they had wasted nine months to do what they should have done in a day and avoided the mishaps that followed.

They had both paid a steep price for not settling their dispute amicably as the Bible commands.

But, they eventually forgave themselves, and things gradually became better.