‍APOLOGIES AND FORGIVENESS

My stomach dropped. I had botched the entire conversation with my daughter. Here she was, wide-eyed and willing to come to a consensus on time management as she was spreading her wings in the middle school years, learning to take control of her calendar. However in the course of the discussion, I had overemphasized the wrong things and disheartened her. I recalled a whiff of a verse, “the power of life and death is in the tongue.” Tears welled up in my eyes, and frustrated at myself, I confessed my sin and apologized to my daughter. We hugged and tears flowed, then dried, and we eventually laughed as we right-sized our relationship over the schedule.

‍Have you apologized lately to your child? Does asking for forgiveness cause your mouth to run dry or are you ready to own your mistakes and “mend the bond,” as was artfully told in the Pixar movie, Brave. 

Jesus calls us to confession and forgiveness if we follow Him as Lord, just as He taught us to pray in Luke 11:4: “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.” I’d argue that confession to a child can be one of the hardest things to do as a parent, but God calls us to confess within a community, and isn’t our family our first human community?

Ryan Griffith wrote in DesiringGod.org:

Confession of sin in the presence of others is applying and celebrating the gospel,  together. We are sanctified sinners who all need more grace for holiness, and we must rehearse this together. John beautifully captures this: “My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1–2). [1]

As my husband and I are wedged between fledging adult children and nesting aging parents we’ve been often reflecting on how we can continue to improve our relationships with our daughters as they move from learners to explorers to focusers (find out more about those terms in Kara Powell & Steven Argue’s book, Growing With – an excellent book to navigate parenting during the teen to adult transition). I’ve come to believe that I should adopt more humility, confession, and grace toward the dear ones I call family. I pray acting out these practices will give my daughters a healthy example of what it looks like to exercise a key part of our faith – confession and forgiveness – in community.

‍God has given us parents a key role of authority in our kids’ lives, especially in their tender years. We hear in Proverbs 1:8, My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction. (NLT) We know from our own experience that we don’t listen to someone well unless we respect them. Often it seems that we would lose our kids’ respect if we acknowledge our sins and shortcomings to them. But the opposite is true! Our kids will have a healthier understanding of us as whole human beings by our confession, and in turn, we give them the opportunity to learn how to forgive. What a gift!

‍Practically, what does confession and forgiveness look like in your family? I asked a wise friend recently, and she said she just had to “suck it up and DO it!” I agree – we have to do whatever it takes to act and overcome pride in a timely manner, which I find is easier to do by praying first. Then I like to talk one on one with the family member I have wronged, look her in the eye, and state how I fell short, apologizing for the harm done. We talk together on how we can move forward, thinking of reasonable and creative steps we can implement to prevent repeating that mistake.

‍If you model confession and forgiveness with your child, he or she will have a powerful example to shape his or her own behavior now and into the future. But don’t stop there. Surround your family with a “cloud of witnesses” – believers who also practice confession and forgiveness which your child can observe. You can even use examples of characters in literature. Show your child that this practice of apology and forgiveness is a fundamental tenet of your family and community.

What a blessing to be in a community committed to following the way of Jesus! Thank you Epic family for loving God and each other so that we can ALL get better walking in confession and forgiveness.

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Grace and peace,

Annikki

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Literature ideas to encourage healthy apology and forgiveness
Picture books for kids:

• Sorry, I Forgot to Ask! and But It’s Not My Fault, Cook (direct and instructive)
• A Pair of Red Clogs, Matsuno (dishonesty, repentance and forgiveness)
• The Rag Coat, Mills (main character faces choice of forgiving schoolmates)
• Babar To Duet or Not to Duet, de Brunhoff & Waisglass (value of confession)
• The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, Covey (many good lessons in this one)
• The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes, Pett & Rubinstein (accepting mistakes gracefully)

Middle grade readers:

• Lunch Money, Clements (rivalry, then apology and working together)
• Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery (famous apology scene)
• Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis (transformation of Eustace; all of Narnia is worthwhile as a read aloud!)
• Lamplighter books (we particularly enjoyed the audiobooks)

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What Epic Kids & PreK are learning in August:

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[1] Griffith, Ryan. “Confessing our Sins Together” Desiring God, 26 Jun 2014, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/confessing-our-sins-together. Accessed 31 July 2024.