Catholic Singles

FORGIVENESS
BY: MARK ANTHONY ROSOLOWSKI

Hearing mom yell, "Who broke my favorite lamp?" The thoughts instantly go through your mind, "What do I say? What will she do to me? Why didn't I glue it back together better? Why did I have to play ball in the house?"

You hear mom again, "Who broke my favorite lamp?", now if you are an only child it is obvious who broke the lamp, but if you have siblings, it will take mom longer to find out who broke the lamp. Mom sounds angrier as she yells it the third time, so you walk out of your room, slowly heading towards mom.

As you walk you feel as if you are walking the "Green Mile", you know mom is going to kill you, or worse. The horrors you think about happening to you are unimaginable, but you walk on towards mom.

You walk into the room and you see yourself, in your best impersonation of George Washington you softly utter, “Mom, I can not tell a lie, I did it with my little ball”. In reality you start to cry a little and say “I’m sorry mom, I did It.”, you cringe, close your eyes and wait for the beating to begin. When nothing happens you open your eyes and see mom standing there, she then asks how it happened. You look at your mother, and say. “Mom I know it was wrong, but I was playing with the ball in the room and I broke the lamp”, then you quickly add, “Please don’t kill me.”

To your surprise mom just tells you that you are grounded and you will lose a portion of your allowance till the lamp is paid for, she then hugs you and adds “You are forgiven.”

Next you see yourself before God, it is Judgment Day, and you know you have done many things wrong in your life. You know you have strayed away from God, but you have always returned. As you hear about all of your indiscretions, you see God looking at you, knowing He is waiting for you to speak, you softly whisper, “I’m sorry, I did all of that, please forgive me”. As soon as those words are out of your mouth you cringe, waiting for the worse, but nothing happens.

You open your eyes, you see God looking at you and He is smiling, and as He hugs you He says, “You are forgiven”.

Something as simple as “Forgiveness”, is so hard for some of us to do, why do we hold grudges, hold animosity and hatred towards each other? Why do we find it so hard to forgive, have mercy and to show love to those that have done us wrong? The answer to that of course is simple it is because we are not perfect ourselves, but what a better reason for you to forgive.

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, have both recently just passed, how many of us did not call mom or dad to say, “I love you” Maybe we should all get to a phone and call those that have hurt us, harmed us, done us wrong and let them know that we forgive them for what they have done.

Forgiveness and love fell a lot better the loathing and hate.