Forgiveness

Being a mom is hard. There is exhaustion - mental and physical, there are sacrifices of all that you hold dear - your body, your sleep, your food and your sanity.

I understood how women could forget their sleeping babies in the car, think that their children were possessed by the devil, and have the need to sleep so badly that they would give their children a little extra shot of Benadryl. All of the things that I thought I would never understand were suddenly as clear as daylight to me.

In our society, we beg for forgiveness on a daily basis- from our partners, our children, our friends - but we seldom seem able to do it ourselves. I think that the most difficult words in our language could be "I forgive". We want to have someone be to blame for all of the wrongs in the world, someone else to be accountable - Jesus never did that. He would break bread amongst the sinners, He would hang out with women that had been accused of sleeping around - He forgave every one and gave us all so much more than we ever deserved.

Oftentimes, forgiveness for others is easier than forgiveness for ourselves. We can let bygones be bygones, let the hurts become numb, ignore a situation until it becomes just another memory, but we beat ourselves up every single day about how we are lacking in our parenting, in our relationships, in our jobs and our homes.

Until we are able to forgive ourselves our faults and learn to improve upon them, we can never really learn to forgive others and teach our children forgiveness.

Here is this week's Bible verse: Matthew 18:21-22