Forgiveness: Lessons from a Five Year Old

It appears that readers may want to know about the incident my dear wife alluded to in yesterday's comments.

This is one of my favorite David stories because of what it says about him. He was five at the time. It was a Saturday morning and like most Saturdays in the Shorey household, one full of life, appointments, church events, and family. Gayline was heading out early to an evangelism event, and I was left at home to fulfill appointments on the home front; a bit of an unusual reversal of the normal pattern. The kids still at home at the time had either gone with Gayline (so I vaguely sensed) or had gone off to work.

A 7:30AM appointment called at about 7:20 and told me he couldn't come to the house but would I meet him at Friendly's. In the rush of the moment, and with that vague sense that the house was empty, I said sure. A third party came to pick me up and we hurried out the door to meet for breakfast.

An hour and a half later as my ride is driving me home I gasped in a horrified moment of memory clarity: my five year old son was home alone! My vague sense that the house was empty when I left was terribly mistaken! I'd forgotten that Gayline had not taken David with her on this occasion--and all the others were in fact gone from home.

I cell phoned the house deperately hoping that David wouldn't answer--which would give me hope that he was still asleep and oblivious to his aloneness. But no, on the third or fourth ring, he answered the phone with somewhat pitiful voice. I asked him if he was alone and he said yes--and my grief and guilt overwhelmed!

I talked to him all the way home and then ran into the house to grab hold of him and smother him with hugs and dozens of repeated pleas for him to forgive me for what I had done, drowning him all the while in my many tears. He said he really was ok. Trouble was: I wasn't.

That evening as we shared a meal with friends, I rehearsed what had happened, expressing again how sorry I was. After several minutes of reflection, I heard David begin to speak. Here's what he said: "My dad kept saying he was sorry and he kept asking me forgiveness, saying it was his fault. But I'd like to think that it wasn't really anyone's fault. It just happened."

I'm not lying. That was what my five year old said, and pretty much verbatim how he said it. What grace! What charitable judgment! What kindness!

I wept again. He was ok--and now because of his words--to a large degree, I was ok too.

I'm not sure how a five year old manages to show such grace, but I'm sure of this: I'm a debtor to grace--God's, my wife's, my kids, and everyone else's that I know and have sinned against.

Long before David had any real and deep sense of how much grace he has received from God through Christ, he showed grace to his dad. How much more should all of us who have received "grace unmeasured, boundless, free", show it to others?

Lessons from a five year old.