Sorry Isn't Good Enough

 

Dear Old Friend,

As you are well aware, there are many wonderful things about being a grandparent! One thing, which I might not call "wonderful", but perhaps "interesting", is that I have gained a perspective which comes only after getting some distance from the all- consuming process of taming your children to a point where you can safely release them into polite society without suffering total humiliation. 

This grandmotherly perspective has given me the ability to watch with a measure of objectivity as some of my own questionable parenting choices are passed down from my children to my grandchildren.  For example, I listened as one of my exasperated children repeated something to my grandchild which I had said many times.  The statement was made after my grandson (I can say that without implicating anyone, since all of my grandchildren are boys!) said he was sorry for doing the exact same thing he had done countless times before; several times that very day. His frustrated parent told him, “Saying you’re sorry isn’t good enough! If you were really sorry you would stop doing it!”

In that instant I had two flashes of insight.  I realized the falsehood of one part of that statement, and the deeper truth of the other.  I will start with the falsehood:  “If you were really sorry, you would stop doing it”.  

How many, many times have I done something I knew was wrong, and told God I was sorry?  And, when I told him that, I meant every word!  Often I was desperately sorry, and vowed never to repeat that deed or say those words, or think those thoughts again.  But, I did.  Most of them more times than I can count!  God knew the sincerity of my confession; but he also understood my inability to follow through on the vow.  No matter how many times I came to him with the same sad “I’m sorry”, even in the same day, he accepted my remorse and forgave me. The same thing is true for us all!

As for the deeper truth:  “Saying you’re sorry isn’t good enough”; in light of what I just said about God forgiving me over and over and over again, that sentence appears, at first glance, to be false.  But I was struck with the sudden realization that, if “sorry” truly had been good enough, Adam and Eve could just have said it and that would have been that. 

The truth, from before the foundation of the world, is that “sorry” was not enough.  Wrong had to be treated as wrong.  There had to be consequences for the bad things that were done in order for justice to exist in our world. No one would want a world without justice, where anyone could do anything to someone else with no fear of punishment.  Someone had to suffer the consequences of the wrongs which were committed.

So, God sent Jesus, his innocent son, to our world; born of a virgin, laid in a manger.  And he lived a perfect life and died a sinner’s death, in our place; so that, only because of him, when we say we are sorry over and over again, it is now truly enough.

I wish I had understood that better when my kids were little! Maybe if I share this with them now they will be  able to be more gracious to themselves and to their children than I was.

Love Always,

Bonnie