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Forgiveness

A Slap in the Face

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I don’t want to boast or anything, but I make a mean batch of chocolate chip cookies. Ever since I learned the secret of adding a box of instant vanilla pudding to the dough, my cookies have been nice and soft, even a day or two later, if any happen to make it that long. I don’t claim to be an amateur chef like my brother, who even has his own food blog (The Cordial Chef, in case you’re interested), but I make good food for my family, and especially those chocolate chip cookies. So a number of years ago when we had new neighbors move in across the street, I whipped up a batch of my cookies and took them over as a welcoming gift. The wife made a comment about how soft they were, and I proudly let her in on my little secret. Then her husband informed me that since his mother burned everything while he was growing up, he got used to burned cookies and actually preferred them. Oh. Um, thank you?

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Guilty Consciences

Mommy guilt is a powerful thing, as most mothers can tell you. Many of us worry that somehow we’re completely messing things up for our kids. There are so many different books out there telling us how we “should” be parenting, and a lot of us read them only to realize we fall far short. We worry that we’re damaging our kids for life, that they’ll be ruined forever if we do this parenting thing wrong. Hence the painfully true E-Card that says, “Behind every great kid is a mom who’s pretty sure she’s screwing it up.” One of the most encouraging books I’ve read is Mommy Grace: Erasing Your Mommy Guilt by Sheila Shuller Coleman. I really need to re-read that book, because just last week we had a really bad morning, and I felt guilty about it the rest of the day. Let me illustrate, but read on at your own risk…

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Fender Benders

It was not a good morning. At. All. I had accomplished the crazy morning dash of getting the kids ready for school and out the door on time, but as I pulled into the empty parking lot I realized we were on a two hour fog delay. At least, that’s what I assume. We didn’t have fog by our house, and since this was before the days of text notifications for delays and cancellations, parents were left to their own discretion to check the radio or TV for delays. I, obviously, hadn’t deemed it necessary to check, so here we were sitting at school fully ready for the day two hours early. But the day was about to get worse.
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Unbelieveable

One of the things I love about Jesus’ parables is how unbelievable some of them are. He throws in so many unexpected twists and characters that there’s no possible way some of those parables could ever actually happen. A man who sells all he has to get one pearl? Sure. The story of the workers in the vineyard, where the owner pays the guys who worked one hour the same thing he paid the guys who worked 12 hours? Never going to happen in the real world. Imagine pitching, say, “The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant” as a TV show idea. Um, yeah, we can’t use this. Sorry, but it’s just too far-fetched. This guy’s debt is unrealistic, and there’s no way the king would just cancel it all because he asked him to. And then for him to be such a jerk to his fellow worker regarding his small debt is completely ridiculous. Give us something people can believe. But here’s the thing—this story has happened. And you’re one of the main characters.

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Defining Moments

There are defining moments in everyone’s life, some more dramatic than others. Perhaps you look back over your life thus far and see an important decision that stands out as one such moment; a decision that shaped the course of your future from there on out. Maybe it was an event, like a stroke or accident that left you or a loved one incapacitated and altered the course of the rest of your life. Some defining moments are good. Many would point to Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous “I have a dream” speech as a moment that defined not only his life, but much of the civil rights movement. Other defining moments are less illustrious. Consider the college student who killed himself in 2010 after his roommate taped him and his same-sex partner in the act. People who didn’t know anything about him at all will remember him for this. It’s a tragic defining moment. My guess is that your defining moments are somewhere in between those two extremes, but first, let’s look at some more examples.

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Life Lessons from a Child

Over the holiday weekend, we were able to spend some time with my parents at their house. We had a nice cookout, played games together outside, and enjoyed good conversations. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? And it was, except that one of my children decided to throw a pity party after losing a game of badminton. He accused his adult opponent of cheating, started moping around, and made all sorts of “poor me” comments that got old fast. This is far from the first time such a thing has happened. And I’m not gonna lie to you, I wouldn’t mind a Super Nanny at that point to tell me how I should respond. But suffice it to say that when we got in the car to go home I was not pleased. We reprimanded him on the way home and had a fairly stony ride back. Then we got home and everyone went their own separate ways to get away from each other. Some time later, I heard a knock on my door. It was my son coming to apologize. Sweet, right? Yet at the same time, as I’m sure many of you other parents out there can understand, somehow irritating, because I knew this wasn’t the last time this would happen. It seems like we go through this same silly charade over and over again, and it gets to me after a while. Seriously, you’d think by now he would have learned his lesson, right?

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Tales of a Fourth-Grade Sleepover

What happens when you combine three spirited fourth grade boys plus a jealous second grade brother for a birthday sleepover? It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but I assure you it is all too real. That’s exactly what happened at my house this past weekend.  Continue reading “Tales of a Fourth-Grade Sleepover” →

Forgive and Forget?

Yesterday’s Ash Wednesday service was all about pardon. And let’s face it, we love stories about forgiveness, don’t we? Think about the beautiful accounts of forgiveness in the Bible. Joseph forgiving his brothers for selling him into slavery, God forgiving David after he had committed adultery and murder, Matthew the hated tax collector who became a disciple and went on to write a Gospel account, the thief on the cross who repented in his final hours and was granted eternity with the Lord, Jesus forgiving Peter after he had denied his Lord three times, the dreaded persecutor Saul becoming the staunch apostle Paul… Continue reading “Forgive and Forget?” →

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