Forgiveness

 

Are you perfect?  No, I didn’t think so.  Relax, neither am I.  But why do we correct our kids and prod and push them as if we wanted them to be perfect?  Do they get the feeling that we think that they should be perfect?  I hope not.  I, for one know that I was not a perfect father, but I was the best father that my four children had.  And they would have rather had an imperfect father who loved them than a perfect father whom they could never live up to.  When I was in physical science in 1963 at Edgewood high school, I came into class one day to see everyone looking exceptionally nice.  Then I felt that sinking feeling that you get when you have forgotten that there was a field trip that day.  Oh yes I did!  But Mr. Archer, God bless his soul, took it all in stride.  We marched down to the secretary’s office and he called my mother and got verbal permission for me to go.  Then he stopped by the teacher’s lounge and bought me an orange crush drink to go with the sack lunch that I brought every day.  Mr. Archer paid for the drink out of his own pocket.  Then we got onto the bus and I had a great day visiting Peach Bottom nuclear plant.  Mr. Archer made it no big deal, but to me it was a big deal.  He smoothed over my carelessness and made me feel cared for.  And that’s a good feeling.  I know.  Hey, we should be kind and forgiving to others because the day will come when WE need forgiveness and mercy.  Paul said in Ephesians 4:32, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”  Did Jesus Christ forgive you?  Then go and do likewise to your fellow human beings, for we will all need forgiveness sooner or later.