Jeanne Collins: February 24, 2015

Week 1 Luke 15:11-15

Tuesday, February 24

A Reflection on Forgiveness from Jeanne Collins

 

It’s not easy being a parent.

You want to do everything to ensure your children have a “better life” than you imagine you did; you want to protect them from harm and give them everything you never had.  But they want more.  They want it now.  They don’t want to wait.  They don’t want to earn it – “just give it to me.”  And then they go and do something stupid, circumventing all your good intentions. 

Things haven’t changed much in the nearly 2,000 years since Jesus told this parable, have they?

It’s hard to watch your children suffer, harder still not to intervene to try to “make it all better.”  The young man in the parable squandered his inheritance, given to him early because he thought he knew it all and couldn’t wait, and he ended up at the bottom: feeding pigs.  Sometimes, you have to hit bottom before you can bounce back up. 

And it’s hard – very hard – to admit that you were wrong.  You have to humble yourself to beg forgiveness.

Imagine God – our Father -- scratching His head over us:  we think we know it all, we think we can do it all, and we think we don’t need anyone’s help.  Until we’ve blown it.  We are all still children!

Thankfully, we too have a Father who doesn’t give up on us!  He’ll let us pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and watch us as we move forward, hopefully having learned something from what we’ve just experienced.  He watches us make our mistakes so that we have the opportunity to learn from them.  But rest assured:  he is watching, waiting for our epiphany – waiting to celebrate with us when we’ve turned the corner and are coming home, sorry for our mistakes and wiser because of them. 

Read a little further:  Father -- our Father in heaven -- will embrace us when he sees us coming down the road.   What a comfort!

Abba, Father, thank you for cherishing me, for forgiving me as I “grow up,” for assuring me that I will always be welcomed home by you -- and for reminding me to do likewise for all your children.   Amen.