Forgiving Davis

Our four and a half year old son Davis is eager to please, earnest, and very, very emotionally intense.

The other day he hit his little sister Zoe. A common occurrence around these parts, but one that requires a time-out nonetheless. Time-out for Davis is less an exercise in personal reflection than it is an opportunity to verbally work out his conflicted inner-world of anger, shame, and desire to make amends.

After the time-out was over, we debriefed why he was in timeout and then he apologized to Zoe for clobbering her in the head. Issue settled.

Only not for Davis. Fifteen minutes later he was still apologizing. Zoe had forgiven him, I had moved on, but Davis couldn't forgive himself.

"Son," I said sitting down next to him in the midst of a string of continuing apologies, "Zoe's forgiven you, God's forgiven you, and I've forgiven you. Sometimes we have to learn how to forgive ourselves. It's okay, son. You don't have to feel bad any more. You're forgiven."

Davis doesn't always track with those types of conversations. But he was completely dialed into those five sentences. And afterwards, he seemed to settle down and move on.

This won't be the last time I probably have to have that conversation with him. But I hope and pray that Davis might learn the power of forgiveness and so be free to not live under the joy-killing power of guilt and shame. It's a journey that lots of grown-ups and almost-grown-ups are still working on.