Forgiveness

We just returned from a week's vacation in Wisconsin.  Two of our children with grandchildren in tow accompanied us.  Each of the 'family' units had a condo for their own personal use.

The nice thing about ours was that it had direct access to the playground equipment, so our two youngest gkids were constantly running through our unit to access the playground.

One thing happened that I want to talk about.  In a conversation with one son, he became very upset and angry with me.  He told me (with anger in his voice and his eyes) that he was offended by something his Dad and I had said.  I immediately apologized and asked his forgiveness, and told him he needed to express his feelings to his Dad as well as me.  He didn't want to do that, but did, as I didn't feel like taking all the brunt of the ill feelings.

Relations were tense for the rest of the day and Monday.  On Monday I talked at length with my husband, and expressed my hurt at being misunderstood.

Tuesday morning this son knocked on our door very early wanting to talk.  We were able to both of us express our feelings and get everything 'out on the table' and clear the air.

Had he not come to our unit there might still be hard feelings.  I think the lesson here is that it's important to express feelings.  This is the kind of incident that can spiral out of control and cause family rifts. 

I'm so grateful that we are all Christians and know how we are to act and proceed when disagreements happen, as they surely will from time to time.