Those Terrible Mistakes

I have been deeply impacted by the recent suicide of the nurse who mistakenly revealed a confidential medical report on Kate's condition for the whole world to hear.  She made a mistake.  Those trying-to-be-funny broadcasters made a mistake.  Probably the nurse's employers did not realize how deeply the nurse had taken her mistake and may have not supported her enough.  Even her suicide was a most terrible mistake.  A life taken for what was supposed to be a joke.

I have also made some terrible mistakes.  Said things that should not have been said.  Done things that should have been left undone.  There are many moments in my life that I wish I could undo.  While it is not possible to undo, there is hope for picking ourselves up and moving forward in the redo of new opportunities in the future.  One of my favorite parenting strategies is the immediate redo strategy.  When the kids do not listen or make an error, I point out the mistake and give them the opportunity to immediately redo their action right then and there. We need to give each other the grace and opportunities to try again.  Even in those tragic situations that seem beyond redemption, there is hope.  I  believe that even after death there is deep hope and grace abounding.  Nothing is beyond God's reach and love.  Even those ultimate mistakes in death are not outside the expanse of God's care.  In His love, He brings life and hope out of our worst and most tragic mistakes.

We need a big theology and a big God for those big mistakes.  Christ's birth starts out in the brokenness of the world.  Alone.  In a stable.  Certainly if others had known this was such an important birth, there may have been room in a place more suited to a birth than the barn.  Nevertheless, that birth in the barn in an alien world was not a mistake.  His death was seen by his disciples as a terrible mistake.  But it was not.  That death was redeemed and had purpose and plan that was actually all about our own forgiveness plan with hope for the future.

We have an expansive and abundant God who loves us.  Reach out to Him.  Come to Him with your broken and contrite heart.  Seek the forgiveness that He gives and then move forward to the redo.  Yes, we do need  to forgive ourselves and others, but God as seen in Christ and the Bible gives me comfort and strength to know an even greater forgiveness from God.  His Spirit gives me the power to pick myself up and keep on going with hope that there can even be purpose and beauty coming out of mistakes.  Go forward in the peace and grace of God to the hopeful and life-giving future today.