SubscribeApology accepted
There are just some things you ought not to apologize for, my friend insisted last week. If you know you are right and that God has told you to do a thing, then no matter how much folks protest or what they say, you just shouldn’t apologize, she fussed.
Given the context in which she was speaking, which I won’t bore you with here, she pushed a good point that I revisited several times since our somewhat one-sided conversation.
But when you are wrong, you just ought to say “I apologize” even though you know it’s probably not enough to heal the hurt you caused. An apology is better said than not in that case, I believe. We saw a glaring example of that this week during Shirley Sherrod’s rollercoaster ride in the media over an edited tape that tried to make the USDA official and a Georgia NAACP branch look like racists in action.
Without giving her a chance to explain, her job was yanked from her and she was vilified by some media pundits. Sherrod, who had spent her life battling unfairness and injustice, saw the twin evils visiting her again.
Sherrod was a study of grace under pressure as she grappled with the fallout from the doctored video. She got more public apologies in one week than she had received in her lifetime after the full video revealed the redemptive nature of her speech. From the country’s chief commander to one of the country’s biggest mouthpieces, Sherrod received a rush of mea culpas and an offer for a better job from her boss.
“I asked for Shirley’s forgiveness and she has been gracious enough to give it to me,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said earlier this week. ”I did not think before I acted…This woman has been through hell.”
A sincere apology has healing powers. When we make amends, especially when we do it before hearts harden, we release God’s grace into our life and the life of the person we’ve offended. We create space for good to flow to us and to others, especially in situations like Sherrod’s when so many people felt the sting of her rebuke.
Author Margaret Lee Runbeck says it this way:
”Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift.”
When you have knowingly or unwittingly wrong someone in word or deed, do you quickly apologize or do you wait hoping time will erase the memory? Are you waiting for someone to tell you “I’m sorry” for something they did or said about you? Is someone waiting on you?
Today, decide to apologize or to forgive. Open up space in your life for God’s grace to flow through you.
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