Last week a teary eyed and angry boy came back from youth club. A great act of injustice and embarrassment had been served and his young heart didn't know what to do with it.
Accused in the wrong of something he would not do, he was told off in front of the whole group and singularly denied the end-of-club-treat.
Daddy found him hidden behind the church piano when he came to pick him up and the great injustice was explained to me upon his return.
I stored away my immediate reaction which would have been to hug and soothe him and give him a treat bigger than he would have got at youth club and wallow in his injustice with him, I wanted to call up the leader in question and give him a piece of my mind, but something stopped me.
I went to his room where he sat quietly on his bed and told him the same story my dad told me. It was my dads injustice story from when he was a boy. He too had been at a children's club where part of the uniform was a hat. Some boys had been throwing their hats in the air (dad was likely one of them!) when a leader came in demanded that no hats were to be thrown any more. Dad obediently put his hat on and stood in line when some smart Alec came up behind him, took it off his head and threw it in the air - dad got in trouble and for once it was not his fault!
Caleb enjoyed this story so much that he asked for more. I told him of the greatest injustice, that Jesus was punished for the sins of all, for the sins of mine, of his, of the smart Alec with dads hat and even the leader who told Caleb off just an hour before.
Still he pressed me for my story of injustice. I feel I was quite a naughty child, perhaps more mischievous that naughty, but either way I was hard pressed to find a childhood story that I was not at least partially to blame for!
We settled him to bed minus my story and I promised I'd think about it and get back to him.
Today a teary eyed and angry lady stands at the stove typing and stirring a cup of tea. Great acts of injustice and embarrassment have been served and her (slightly) older heart doesn't know what to do with it.
I haven't been searching out these stories, I'd put Caleb's request out of my mind and stored it with the rest of the crazy that bubbles beneath my facade of serenity. Quietly Jesus is nudging me, standing beside me and encouraging me to allow the hurt to surface. He is here, it is safe.
What to do, what to do. My heart demands justice. My heart desires reconciliation...but I stop dead in my tracks in the shocking realisation that for every way I have been wronged I have also been wrong. I have been unjustly treated and I have served injustice. I have been the victim, I have been the victimiser. It's easy to be the hurt party. It is harder to admit guilt.
Mercy.
Forgiveness.
Grace.
Peace.
Freedom.
You know who you are, I'm ready to be reconciled.
