Forgiveness

As I have a moment before baths and bed I wanted to write this up. This is something I've been thinking on the importance of a lot recently.

The other night I came across these quotes. “There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” Bryant H. McGill
And “To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.” Robert Muller

They're so true for all ages.

This has been a big thing in our home recently. Though my 2 and 3 year olds do get along the majority of the time they do have their moments of conflict. Of course we teach them to apologize but I realized we needed to also emphasize the importance of forgiveness. It so easy to get caught up in making one child say sorry but not reminding the other child to truly forgive and let the resentment go and move forward. Even if the child who took the toy or pushed the other is deeply sorry, if the other child doesn't forgive them you will see the resentment in their actions the rest of the day and several more conflicts usually arise. When I make sure the apologies are accepted and the wrongs forgiven I always see a huge difference.

I also have found at times that I need to ask my kids to forgive me. It is so easy to jump to conclusions about certain situations as to who is at fault. It's important even if that only resulted in a slight raising of voice to apologize for my misunderstanding. This has made the kids feel more comfortable about telling us when issues arise instead of letting them get out of hand.

It's amazing to see that even at such a young age they notice the difference when we remind them to both forgive and apologize versus just apologize.

This is important at any age of course but I didn't realize what a difference it could make even in children until now.

I've found often through my life that it was harder to forgive the person who did me wrong than apologize if I did something wrong. Another quote that seems to explain it well:"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” by Lewis B. Smede. Holding resentment over something is almost as bad as the act itself.

But forgiveness at any age is a huge gift, even if the person you forgive doesn't ever know you forgave them. God teaches us to forgive as he forgave us and we often forget this. I'm writing now to both remind myself and my children for years to come to forgive. “There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.”