Forgiven

Achilles heels.

We all have them.  

You know, the area in one's life that seems hardest to change yet incredibly so loathsome to have as a part of one's character.  Yet it remains. 

I don't think there is any part of me that I have prayed about more than my temper and yet it gets the better of me more than I really even care to admit to myself. 

The guilt I feel after I blow it yet again feels like a weight on my neck.  The mental re-hashing of my failure grinds at my soul.   The remorse at unleashing an unnecessary fury on two small blessings is bitter pill to swallow.

Yet it remains.

A few weeks I had a parenting fail of epic proportions.  There was yelling, there was door slamming and I believe a wall may have been punched.  None of it was helpful, none of it changed my children's behaviour and all I was left with were two scared, tear-stained pre-schoolers.

The weight of my failure was immense.  The night was endless as I cried out to my Maker, "Please heal me of this horrid anger.  I so desperately long to be kind, to be gentle and to be even, not this tower of fury."

Again and again I repented.  Yet, the weight remained.

The following morning was communion.  Once again, I examined myself and once again, found myself repenting.  I asked "how can I come before you, so stained and pathetic?"

The answer was what I long to be to my children.

Gentle, firm, full of authority but overwhelming with love.

"Forgiven.  You can come because you are forgiven.  You are weak, you are sinful, prideful and you will fail again, but you are forgiven.  I am faithful and just and you are cleansed from that unrighteousness."

The weight was gone.

So it remains.

Forgiven.