I have a letter. It's an old letter, and it's one that I haven't looked at for a very long time, but it hides in the pages of Ecclesiastes 3:1-7. It changed a man's life. Because of it, I changed a man's life.

When I first received the letter, I didn't know what to do with it. I read it, and reread it. Ultimately, when all was said and done, I put it in my desk and moved on with my life, but not before letting it persuade me to take actions against another. You want to know what the letter said, but I won't tell you. It is private. I am not trying to be cryptic, but I will simply say that it was heartfelt and tearful, and I believed it. I believed in the power that I felt when I read it and I let it define me in that moment as someone who would not tolerate an injustice against her.

As I got older, I would run across it now and again and for reasons I cannot explain, I kept it. I aged. It aged, yet that old letter still moved me. Its meaning changed for me over the years and as I got older, I realized that the power I felt at that time I first received it was misplaced. The drama of the moment led me to take actions that now seem so unnecessary. In other words, I realized that I had been wrong. I had made a decision that seemed so simple at the time, but was in fact complicated beyond even my own understanding.

So, as I got older and wiser, I decided that the old letter needed a new home. I placed it in my bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes. Here, on the pages of my old bible, it reads,

To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, and
a time to die;
a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up
that which is planted;

A time to kill, and
a time to heal;
a time to break down, and
a time to build up;

A time to weep, and
a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and
a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and
a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and
a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and
a time to lose;
a time to keep, and
a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and
a time to sow;
a time to keep silence, and
a time to speak;

A time to love, and
a time to hate;
a time of war; and
a time of peace.

Understand that I placed my old letter there for a reason. This was before the days of MySpace and Facebook. Before you could just IM an old "friend". In my heart I hoped that there would be a time when I would be able to face the man who never even knew that the letter existed. The man who never knew what really drove me to do the things that I did. I believed that I would have the chance to ask for forgiveness and to help heal wounds that I had dug deep. So I placed the letter there. And I waited.

It's been 13 years and I have been blessed (dare I say, blessed) by the invention of Facebook, where I have had the opportunity to speak with the man whose life I changed so many years ago. We have talked. I have cried. He has asked why? I have explained about the letter and I have given answers as best I know how. He has given forgiveness without condition.

Someday, I'll take that old letter out of my bible and put it away. For now though, I choose to leave it there, adding my own page to depict a new chapter of my life. This time the letter being written comes from me. The life that it's changed is mine.

Thank you for your forgiveness R.