The Gospel of free forgiveness in Christ frees us to expect mistakes, forgive them, and to find the humor in them after the fact.
I remember as a kid that my parents would always tell people that my sister and I were good kids but we were kids. This was often said when we were out somewhere and showed off by displaying our good manners. My dad told us early on that if we had to be spanked by our teachers, aunts, or other adults then we would get twice as much spanking when we got home. We were always good in public, no matter whether we were actually good at home in the between times or not.
As a kid I never really understood this saying of theirs, after all I knew what my sister and I were like at home but as an adult it makes perfect sense to me. It is another of those things where I hear my mom and dad coming out of my mouth, especially in regards to John. So many people see this cute, adorable little boy with his muscle weaknesses and his inability to speak and think that he is a perfectly adorable little angel, or too mentally slow to actually create trouble. He is most certainly cute and adorable, he is however extremely smart and capable of finding and even inventing trouble when he is of a mind to do so. In the end he is a kid, a good kid, my favorite kid in all the world, but a kid, so I expect him to make mistakes.
When we taught John to sign 'sorry' we also taught him to sign 'forgive'. Many times he has signed 'sorry' and we have told him that we forgive him and signed it to him also. Many times we have told him and signed to him that we were sorry and he has signed 'forgive' for us. We expect him to make mistakes, I'm not sure he expects that of us yet, but he will in time and for now he forgives us when we do, so that's ok. We have learned over the years to expect others to make mistakes too, friends, family and people from church and community are human and everyone needs to know that just because someone is in general a 'good kid' doesn't mean that they won't make mistakes and they in turn need to learn to expect that others will make mistakes also.
If in his cuteness and adorable nature John is able to teach others anything at all it is my prayer, as his mother, that he teaches them and me forgiveness, for nothing this side of heaven is more important to have or to share. So many people have misunderestimated John and while that's an expectable mistake I hope at some time they realize that this little guy is one heck of a great teacher when it comes to forgiveness, compassion and love, not to mention that whole humor thing, John has humor down pat!
1 comment:
Well said Gina!
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