Every one of us has been on the receiving end of being wronged, injured, bumped and bruised physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Alas, we have all too many times been on the giving end of causing harm or offense in some way, large or small, by accident or on purpose, thereby injuring a relationship. That’s just the way of it – Life doesn’t allow us to progress very far without reconciling when we cause a break within our family, our friends, strangers, and most importantly, to ourselves and to God.
No doubt we all agree that through quality parenting we cause our children to mature at a faster rate than they would on their own. We therefore prioritize certain elements of parenting – we make them eat good food for physical development, do their homework for intellectual growth, learn to say please and thank you for sociological culturalization. But do we prioritize the critical element that stands at the epicenter of wellbeing – reconciliation.
We are social creatures. We only come to know ourselves after many decades of living amongst the background of relationships we have. Our relationships help us come to understand, layer below layer, the qualities of being a good person. Only through human interactions can we come to understand the meaning of love, integrity, honesty, virtue, effort, success, happiness, as well as negative ideas such as sorrow, betrayal, failure, and so on. We learn about being human through our community of humans. As children of God, interaction with others is also how we deepen our understanding of that heavenly relationship.
That is why teaching a child how to reconcile relationships is at the center of their maturing process. The skill of overcoming feeling defensive and justified in our actions is something as adults we know all too well. Conversely, feeling excessively guilty isn’t any better. Finding the right balance between ego protection and guilt takes a very long time to mature. The starting point of finding that balance is through developing the skill of a clean heart.
It is commonplace to hear parents tell their children when social niceties warrant “Say you’re sorry” and the child throws out a perfunctory “Sorry”. What exactly is the point of that? In effect it says, “Whatever just happened, I said the magic words to absolve me of responsibility for your discomfort. I don’t feel particularly bad and I need to move on.” Instead, as we learned from Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo in their Parenting from the Tree of Life series, an apology and asking for forgiveness is a huge power shift that communicates the value of the relationship. “I apologize. What I did there caused you difficulty; I didn’t mean for that to happen. I was in my head and not considering how it would affect you. I acted without thinking. Will you forgive me?”
Do you see the shift in power? How the transparency makes the ego defenseless? This vulnerability is a strong position to teach a child. Because what is the likely outcome here? A person who was hurt and confronted with a genuine apology and given the power to forgive, or not, is empowered to decide the direction of the relationship which seems the stronger position. But it’s not – at least not yet. If the goal is maturity and wellbeing, then teaching a child to confront their own ego defensiveness and guilt by engaging the person who they’ve wronged with transparency, vulnerability, and the desire to reconcile is an incrementally stronger position. Only when the harmed person overcomes whatever difficulty has befallen them and accepts reconciliation through forgiveness is the relationship balanced again. Just saying sorry doesn’t offer any of that developmental dynamic. In fact, it could be the opposite. It might just reinforce the very insensitivity that cause the break in the first place. The takeaway here is that offering a genuine apology and asking for forgiveness cleans the heart and leaves the offender in a strong position of character. It’s difficult to offer vulnerability, but it’s the highest path available.
And what about one’s relationship with God through all this? We humans continuously make mistakes. We overshoot, under perform, cause offense, and stumble our way into and through adulthood. We err in intent and don’t mean to hurt others, but often do. From childhood long into life, we’re just trying to figure things out. If a person is underdeveloped in the skill of confronting themselves with the reality that their actions can cause a relational breach, if they haven’t gained enough control over their defensive ego, if they haven’t experienced the peace that comes with a clean heart, then clearly their understanding of reconciliation and forgiveness would be weak as well. And a person who is weak at forgiveness may not receive it.
Many Blessings,
Lis and Dave Marr