Interrupted by Grace {Day 21}: Forgiving

I hope you had a lovely Easter weekend!  Ours was full of activity, not all Easter-related, and I'm relieved to have an empty Monday to get my head back in the game.  Mostly that means, I'm trying to get my house back in order from the Easter entropy that descended upon it over the last three days.  I woke up feeling strangled by the mess, but I'm breathing a little easier now that I have a few rooms straightened and vacuumed.  Phew!

The mess, however, does tell the story of what a fun weekend it was.  We took Friday off of school to visit family in Pittsburgh, celebrated my nephew's birthday on Saturday by participating in the Pirates Charities 5k and Family Fun run, the kids sang in worship yesterday, and my in-laws were up for the day, a day Colin was able to take off, too!

Cousin fun!

In the hustle and bustle and fun, there were a couple of things that happened that got me feeling pretty angry and frustrated, because I felt misunderstood, embarrassed, and judged.  In the middle of my sulking about it, the Lord said to me, Forgive.  Oh, I tell ya, that is not what I wanted to do.  I didn't really want to engage or confront, but I did want to dwell on the situation and forge on in hardness of heart.  Maybe I could even tell others about it and get them on my "side"!

But God said, Forgive.

Well, doesn't He have some nerve, reminding me what Easter is all about on Easter weekend!  Humph.

But oh, He is so good.  So kind.  So gentle.  So right.  The best plan of attack is no attack at all, but rather to let myself be softened by His love, so I can extend it to others.

I still want to dwell on the situation that hurt my feelings.  I want to go back and say my piece, to be justified and hailed as the-one-in-the-right.

Christ calls me to forgive.

I was most certainly interrupted by grace when the Spirit tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to practice grace.  How appropriate, too, that this verse came up in my reading this morning:

It is to one's honor to avoid strife,

but every fool is quick to quarrel.

Proverbs 20:3

Lord, keep saving me from being a fool!  I need all the help I can get.