It had been a long, hard day, and the afternoon had dissolved into an evening mashup of bickering, belligerent selfishness, snotty remarks, and defiant disobedience.
My husband wasn’t even home yet, since it was another long workday, and the eight kids and I were eating later than I had hoped. A sense of helpless discouragement over my inability to keep on time stabbed me mercilessly, even as the seething anger at my kids rose like an acidic heartburn.
“Everyone, sit down and be quiet!” I snapped, trying to quell the unending verbal antagonization.
As the kids settled into a sullen silence, with one last glare at siblings before closing their eyes for the blessing on the food, the ugliness of the hypocrisy was not lost on me.
How could we pray and ask God to bless our meal, our time together, when we were holding so much anger, hurt, and offense?
Unwilling and unable to pretend to God or my kids that everything was fine and carry on as usual, I declared:
“OK. We all need to apologize to God, and to each other for all the things we’ve done and said today.
We’ll each go around and pray, asking God to forgive us, and then we’ll ask the people we’ve wronged to forgive us.
I’ll go first.”
And I prayed out loud, telling God I was sorry for my impatience, my anger, my harsh words, and my quickness to react when I needed to be calm. I asked Him to forgive me.
I then turned to the children I had been sharp and angry with and asked them to forgive me as well.
Startled at the departure from our usual method of praying before a meal, my kids hesitatingly opened their eyes, looked into mine, and each told me they forgave me.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, it’s your turn,” and pointing at the child sitting next to me, I indicated they needed to start talking.
And the amazing thing is… they did.
With the exception of the three-year-old, all seven older children first quietly prayed aloud, asking God to forgive them, and then spoke to the siblings they had offended, asking forgiveness for specific things they had said and done. Several of them apologized to me for various moments of “selective deafness” or snarky backtalk.
All of them knew how they had wronged each other. All of them knew when it was they had done or said something hurtful.
Granted, we did have a few bumpy moments… One kid was suddenly struck with severe amnesia about the entire day, especially pertaining to their own behavior (too bad there were too many witnesses.) Eventually, the memory was fully restored in an apparent miracle, with an acceptable apology stated at last.
There was also the child who, whenever someone else paused in their apology, would helpfully pipe up with a reminder of another item they should be sorry for as well.
But in spite of these little snags, by the time we had circled around to the last child, the tension and anger in the room had totally gone. Some kids had wept while apologizing, and the sincerely uttered “I’m sorry for…” statements had been accepted without hesitation by all the others. Often, when seeing the contrition in the one apologizing, the offended siblings would spontaneously jump up to rush around the table to give a comforting hug.
When I finally prayed to ask the blessing on the food, there was true peace and a softness in everyone’s face where there had been anger and hardness before. Genuine smiles and kindness lingered, even as we cleared the table and got ready for bed later.
It was an entirely changed atmosphere.
It scared me to think of how the evening might have turned out if I hadn’t said those three words: “I’ll go first.”
Sometimes, to bring back the softness, the repentance, the kindness, and the love – to repair relationships that have cracked or broken – it takes gritty humility to make that hard initial move and acknowledge our own wrongdoing FIRST.
Our kids and spouses and the people closest to us aren’t shocked by our imperfection. They relax in reassurance when we courageously apologize and admit our errors and wrongdoing, since it means that they, too, aren’t expected to be perfect.
They find comfort knowing there is humility and grace waiting to meet them when they share their own lackings and failings.
It takes a lot of strength and courage to lead in reconciliation and repentance. But the rewards are sweet and entirely worthwhile.
“I’ll go first.”
Will you?
God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.
Matthew 5:9 (NLT)
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on East Willow Place
Featured Image by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
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