Space For Getting It Wrong

I often ponder just how complicated life is and how complicated my heart can be in the midst of it. Sometimes I hurt people, good people, kind people, people I love. Sometimes they hurt me. Often, I see the horrible dynamic working that we get wounded by others and then, out of that pain, we somehow wound them back. Or we wound someone different. Why is that?

The reality is that we’re part of a humanity that chose to go our own way ‘back in the garden’ when Adam and Eve believed they could decide for themselves what was right and wrong rather than trust God. Many of us are still choosing our own decisions and ways, day by day in all kinds of small decisions and much larger ones. We live in a world that has been broken since then, and one of the consequences is that we all get it wrong.

Other people get it wrong for us. They hurt us. They fail us. Sometimes they damage us terribly. God knows all about this.

We get it wrong for other people. We hurt them. We fail them. Sometimes we damage them terribly. God knows all about this too.

So, what do we do when we recognise ourselves to be caught in the repeating cycle of brokenness? Where do we go when we can’t seem to make things right on our own?

Recently a precious friend and I made a beautiful cross. We found some beautiful twisted bits of wood, formed by years of use and abuse and we tied them together with a gorgeous piece of red and gold ribbon. Then we propped it up in the garden and sat on a blanket at the foot of it. It was a sunny day and, as the shadow of that cross fell on our faces, we talked to Jesus in that safest of safe places.

We brought all the sorrows and mistakes and pain. We forgave the things that others had done to us, and we said sorry for the things we had done against others. Then we asked our faithful Lord Jesus for forgiveness for all of it. There was no need to hide, and no need to self-justify. There was no need to rant, and no need to be crushed under guilt. We just came to Him in honest trust that He would do all that needed to be done.

The Way of the Cross is the place of freedom. Our Christian story has space for getting it wrong. It has space for being guilty. It has space for being the transgressor as well as the transgressed against. We don’t have to get it right all the time - because we can’t. It’s why Jesus came.