I respect stay-at-home moms. My wife was gone a whopping 3 days this week, and I was reminded how exponentially more difficult her job is than mine. She puts up with a lot of crud from our boys...and she does it pretty gracefully.
I, on the other hand, grew short-tempered with them...even over relatively minor things. Today as I was cutting down trees, my 2 year old spilled my cold water (he has a bad habit of destroying that which isn't his and not taking care of things). I blew up! I was angry. I told both boys to get away from me and to not touch whatever didn't belong to them any more.
I finished what I was doing and I calmed down. After lunch, we all had quiet time away from each other. After quiet time, I approached my oldest son (who was also there during my blow-up) and confessed that my behavior was downright wrong. I told him what I did and how I should not have done it. I confessed that I did not control my anger properly. This is something we've been working on with him, because, unfortunately, he has my short fuse.
I modeled bad behavior.
I did not model the gospel to my sons.
Thankfully, my son was very quick to forgive me. It is a special gift God has given him. It is one thing we both share. When we are hurt, we are both relatively quick to forgive. We don't seem to harbor resentment for prolonged periods of time. We both hurt easily, but we forgive easily, too.
I was cut deeply by a close friend at work recently. He was someone I thought would trust my word and be true to his, but wasn't. After talking it through, I was able to forgive him rather quickly. I'm not sure I can trust him all that much, but I was still able to forgive him.
I find it easy to forgive when I reflect on God's tolerance for me and my bad behavior. For some strange reason, He readily forgives me when I sin over and over and over and over again. And my sin against God is infinitely greater than any person's sin will ever be against me. How could I dare harbor grudges toward others when God has chosen not to harbor a grudge against me?
Joshua, may you always be quick to forgive.
Thank you for modeling to gospel to your ol' man.
Well done!
But you modeled great behavior later! Good for you. Those are some of the best lessons your children will ever get. We all sin, and that has consequences, but what we do afterwards speaks volumes. Blessings to you.
ReplyDeleteIt's gratifying to learn of your son's quick forgiveness of others. It's also such a healthy and good thing that you confess your sin to your son and ask forgiveness. We know that as people we're broken, we mess up; helping our kids learn and accept this truth and couple it with forgiveness - now that's a powerful life lesson that will benefit them!
ReplyDeleteNeil and Tracy, your words are very encouraging. Thank you.
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