I know what you are thinking…”This is going to be about one of her kids breaking a plate and her forgiving them”. and I would have to say , WRONG”. Truth be told I break more dishes than the kids! Anyway, this blog post is about laundry! You are completely confused , Right? Well Keep reading! I promise it will make sense in the end!
(Now i want you to know right up front that the two picture quotes i’m going to use from Facebook are not mine but they belong to and were created by someone else. I tried finding the rightful owners but to no avail! So please note i would have asked permission if I knew who to ask!)
So here are the two pictures:
Which of these two is based in biblical principle?
Not sure…well there is a discussion based on the plate picture……by smashing a plate on the floor , it becomes virtually useless. Have you ever seen a plate fall onto tile floor? Let’s just put it this way…only an act of God could put the pieces back together. In this manner the people discussing this plate idea is saying that by saying things we are rendering someone useless? I struggle with that big time! Yes it hurts, yes it does damage, yes there are consequences but that picture? Murder does that, rape could do that, but words of a child? I think that’s is pretty harsh.
After all, mobs of people were yelling crucify him, crucify him, he had been beaten with a whip with pieces of pottery, bone and metal at the ends, he was being mocked and spit on, he had a crown of thorns pushed on his head, he was nailed to a cross and still he spoke out to his Father and said “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Other than a simple repentance, nothing is asked of us. I don’t have to repay my debt to Jesus. I choose to live my life as a sacrifice to him.I might have smaller consequence s to pay for sins i do, but the ULTIMATE Consequence is covered. I find it funny how before once single repentance was uttered Christ requested forgiveness! Of all circumstances of all time, Christ was the ultimate smashed plate! And yet he was NEVER BROKEN! He forgave before an apology was ever given.
So what about the laundry?
Well before i saw the plate picture last night, i had trouble with my 7 year old daughter. She is my helper. When i need something done I can count on her to help me out, but last night was different. I had placed two laundry baskets of laundry in her room to be folded. When i came upstairs I found the two laundry baskets empty outside of the laundry room but didn’t see anything folded and the laundry pile had grown—SIGNIFICANTLY! Now after being sick for nearly a week I was frustrated with her! She had never done anything like this before. I let her know i wasn’t happy with the situation and I also let her know my trust was broken! after a tearful apology about 10 minutes later, I “forgave”her but I assured her, my trust in her was still damaged. (But in all reality…i deserved to be angry. She did make more work for me…and after i had been so far behind because I have been sick)
A couple hours later as i climbed into bed I saw the plate picture had been posted by a couple of different people, and God spoke to me through it……convicted I resolved to apologize to my daughter this morning due to my bitterness! Yes she did wrong, yes she had consequences this morning but do I chose to still trust her….the short answer is yes! Why? Because I chose to give her a second chance, for this very reason Christ doesn’t take back eternal life. GRACE AND MERCY!.
Grace is giving someone something they don’t deserve. (A second chance)
Mercy is NOT Giving someone what they do deserve. (A lack of trust)
So yes my daughter may not deserve my trust but I chose to give it to her.
Why should have Christ trusted Peter with the ministry he would have later? After all he denied not once, not twice but three times. Talk about broken trust! Yet God chose to use Peter! AND bless Peter! Did Peter get away with it? No he had to answer to Jesus himself. Jesus CHOSE to give Peter a second, third and fourth chance Did my daughter get away with creating extra work for me and not obeying me? No she is having to do extra work too! And i will be watching her in her chores!
Let’s be honest what you teach your kids, may be a detriment to your relationship with your child later in life.
Because not only do they make mistakes so do you and inevitably someday you will say something that will hurt them deeply. You may not mean it, but that broken plate lesson will come back to mind. And your relationship with that child will be damaged forever, because what you really taught them was it’s okay to let people break you, and it’s ok to hold a grudge and be bitter.
Is that really what you want them to learn or would you rather them learn what true grace, mercy, and forgiveness really looks like. After all I know that when I get to heaven all of those times I have asked God to forgive me of certain things, they won’t be recounted. They were wiped away!
