#1 on my Top 10 List is ... Forgive each other.

If there is one thing that can save family relationships,

hold marriages together,

heal old wounds

and protect new wounds from festering

it is the simple, yet costly act of forgiveness.

I love how Jesus puts it when his followers ask him how to pray.

He tells them to pray:

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors"

or

"Forgives us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Tricky, Jesus …. tricky.

Do you see how he connects these two actions into one unified request?

We ask for the forgiveness of the Divine, our Creator, for all the ways we fall short, mess up, fail, wound, hurt.

And then …

We turn right around and forgive all of those who fall short, mess up, fail, wound or hurt us.

Does this mean we allow abusive parents to still abuse us? Nope.

Does this mean we give our drug-addicted children drug money? Nope.

Does this mean we gloss over pain and heartache and mean words and broken promises? Nope.

There will always be hard conversations to have, truth to share and boundaries to set.

Always.

But, at the same time, we can also always forgive.

Always.

And we can start with the smallest of things - a word said in anger, a miscommunication, a forgotten birthday.

If we practice forgiveness in the small, we will be experts at it when it comes to the big.

If there is one thing I would leave all of us with as I bid a fond farewell to this little run of posts about parents and adult kids, it would be this:

Forgive each other in the same manner in which you have been forgiven by your heavenly Parent …

If we can do that we may just spare ourselves and those we love from an abundance of unnecessary pain.

There is freedom and joy in forgiveness.

It is a gift you can give at any time; the greatest gift you can ever give to another human being.

And in the paradoxical way of the Kingdom of Jesus you will find that it is simultaneously the greatest gift you can give yourself.

Amen.