A Fat Lesson
When we were kids my dad caught Joseph and I making fun of this pastor for being fat. After scolding us, he told us to walk over to the pastor and apologize to him.

“What? Why? He didn’t hear us! He doesn’t even know we were teasing him!” we reasoned.

Our arguments didn’t change my dad’s verdict, and Joseph and I walked over to the pastor to say sorry. That wouldn’t be the last of uncomfortable apologies for me. There have been a lot more.

“Pastor. We’re sorry for calling you fat.”

He looked at us with a mixture of shock and amusement. And that was that.

I don’t think the pastor remembers the incident, and the embarrassment of it all is gone as well. But years later the lesson of that apology has remained. Because of that incident, and many similar others, I realized that saying sorry has nothing to do with whose fault it is or whether or not someone deserves something. It taught me that saying sorry means two things:

Acknowledging that there’s something wrong. That because of my thoughts and actions, or someone else’s, that a relationship was broken, that someone was hurt, or has suffered loss, or was brought pain.

And second,

Expressing that I’ll be responsible, in a big way or even a tiny way, whether or not I’m at fault, to help make things right.

Years of apologizing have taught me that it doesn’t always fix things. Sometimes it does nothing. Many times it’s just the start. But I’ll take that new start any day. We’re going to make mistakes – that’s life. But we can be humble and ask for an opportunity to right things because there’s love, and love is not proud and love always protects.