The other night I was feeling exhausted and chronically head-ached. I went upstairs hoping to find my children bathed and pyjama-ed, but instead I found my youngest, still grubby-faced, curled up asleep on his bed.
Instead of allowing my heart to melt with his angelic beauty, I found myself angrily shouting him awake. He woke up, wide-eyed, and crumpled into tears. I spent the rest of his bath time doing damage-control with this precious little boy.
After seeing my family seated at the dinner table, I took my headache and non-compliant body to bed, and lay there feeling inescapably mortified. I wanted to run away from myself. My impulsive anger was so much a part of me, that there was no guarantee this would not happen again.
After mulling it over and over again, I turned to God for answers. And like a cool breeze that comes after a scorching day, he said: Forgive yourself.
It was like I had never heard those words before. They seemed like wisdom from another world. My soul breathed a huge sigh. Again, His words came: Don’t you understand? No one is perfect. I don’t expect you to be. And neither should you. I have forgiven you. So has James. Now forgive yourself.
As parents we going to do much that is wrong, much that we will carry in our luggage of shame. As much as we try to be perfect parents, raising perfect children who will have no issues, we have to face the refreshing reality that nothing and no one is perfect. We will make mistakes, and the greatest challenge we may face is this – to forgive ourselves. To move on into God’s grace for us, and even harder, our grace for ourselves.
The Bible has a lot to say about forgiving others, and God forgiving us, but very little about forgiving ourselves. Yet in Philippians, Paul says: Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: FORGETTING WHAT IS BEHIND and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Next time you do something that fills you with shame, I hope these words encourage and empower you to FORGIVE YOURSELF.
Your fellow traveller,
Candice
