.....me

Not too long ago, I knelt beside my son’s bed to pray with him. He seemed unusually pensive, especially for a Little League baseball player and an active young athlete. When I finished our prayer, he began to weep softly. He turned his head toward the wall. As most parents know, when you ask, “What’s wrong?” you often get an answer that sounds like a muffled, “Nothing.”

I probed a little deeper, and finally he said, “Well, Dad, do you remember a few weeks ago when those boys got in trouble at the church for marking all over the walls in the Royal Ambassador room?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, Dad, it wasn’t just them,” he sobbed. “It was me, too!”

Suddenly, I felt as if I were experiencing a holy moment. My mind swirled with thoughts of all the times I, too, had come face to face with my own wrong. As an earthly father, I had an opportunity to take my son in my arms and say: “You are forgiven. I forgive you, and I love you.”

And with tears coursing down my own cheeks, I lifted my head to my Heavenly Father and said: “Father, do you know all those things that get others in trouble? Well, it’s not just them, Lord. It’s me, too. Forgive me, Father.”

- dean register