I used to think I was spectacular at forgiveness. For years, for most of my life actually, I thought forgiveness was a specialty. Then I slowly came to realize something – when I got hurt I didn’t forgive, I just said I forgave while burying the hurt. That, as someone once said to me, is “sub optimal.”
I think that I’m learning forgiveness now – true, genuine forgiveness.
And I think that sometimes when we are learning or relearning or rerelearning things, God gives us ample opportunity to practice.
So it was yesterday morning at 6:15am, London time, when my hotel phone started ringing. Trying to overcome jet lag, this was decidedly a sub-optimal occurrence. But I picked it up to see if, perchance, something of importance had transpired that required my attention. No, just a buzzing tone.
I set my head back on the pillow and tried to get back to sleep. Then, again, the phone.
Again, nothing.
I called the front desk and sleepily and angrily informed about this and they said, “I’m so sorry, we must have forgotten to take off the wake up call from the last guest.”
I slammed down the phone and stewed. Then I thought about that forgiveness thing. And decided to sleep on it.