forgiveness

I have been pondering about an experience that I had in Washtington, DC. It was the Sunday when Cherylyn and Tanner and I took the kids on a walk. As we were going along the trail, we saw a man coming toward us walking a minature doggy. It was a very cute doggy and Clark, being obsessed with any doggy, cute or otherwise, was in the full throws of happy anticipation of the moment when this man and his doggy would be near enough for some kind of exchange. But then, just as the man and doggy were approaching near enough, he swooped up his doggy into his arms and held him as humanly far away from us as possible as we passed. We were quite surprised! So much so that we ended up not even having the normal friendly greeting that generally passes between strangers when out on a Sunday stroll.

A little while later, and quite out of blue, Cherylyn said that maybe his doggy was not friendly and he was trying to protect us. Though she could have chosen to believe he was Scrooge reincarnate with a dog, she chose to believe that he was perhaps protecting her son.

I have thought how easy it is to take offense from strangers. Those offenses are often forgotten quickly. Offenses from people that we actually know and love are sometimes harder to deal with. For myself, I am caught off guard and even dismayed at the potential that others have to wound me. I personally have been dealing with two inflictions. Was the intent sinister, or were the offending ones clueless that they had gashed me with their sword when they weren't even looking? And likewise, how many times have I inadvertently bumped into another. I am grateful that at the very least I do "not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably, and to render to every man according to that which is his due."

It is one thing to forgive and to forget. And it is another to actually impute a positive spin on disconcerting experiences. I have been learning lessons from my children since they were born. I still am. The stitches and bandages are in place!