A post about apologies

I've done an awful lot of apologizing in the last few weeks, ever since the blasted, dreaded Directory came fresh from the presses...even before that as it was at the printers and mistakes were caught.  I've said those words "I'm sorry" and meant it.  I've worried over the mistakes and beat myself up a little over the mistakes...I think it's part of being a people-pleaser.

Apologizing is tough.  It's really, really difficult.  I could justify the mistakes many times, it's been really hard, actually, to not be defensive and just take the mistakes on my shoulders.  "I'm sorry."  Two of the hardest words to utter without being defensive.  I mentioned to my star of a friend the other day that I believe God is teaching me a lesson through this job and I would really like to be done with the lesson, thank you very much.  I don't like making mistakes, yet I make them and apologies must be genuinely made.

There's an apology that has made headlines today.  I heard it while I was getting ready for work this morning.  Later, at work, I heard that the one's who were on the receiving end of the apology refused to accept it.  Honestly, I don't blame them.  For in one breath there was an apology and in another there was a statement basically saying the individual wouldn't go back and change one thing because his actions were all "part of God's plan".

I believe in God.  I believe in God's plan for my life.  I also believe in humility and true repentance and I don't believe the apology that made headlines held much of either.  I don't blame the one's on the receiving end for refusing to accept an apology that feel flat, very, very flat from someone who then blamed a God who seemed, well, racist, vengeful and a puppet-master.

I've been learning a lesson over the last few weeks, a lesson in humility, in learning to be imperfect and a lesson in the grace of human beings when an apology is real.  Today, I didn't hear an apology that sounded anything like that...and yes, I'm judging.