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While my husband was away recently, I decided to surprise him by painting our laundry room. Anyone who has seen this room may be shocked that I was willing to spend any time on it at all.
The room was never finished properly. The “ceiling” consists of exposed pipes, vents and wires. One wall has a built-in shoe shelf, a water heater, the furnace, and storage for mops and buckets. Another wall has dry wall; another has panelling; still another is about two-thirds drywall, the remainder consisting of a door and window framed in insulation and plastic. The drywall must have run out.
Over the years, people have splashed paint on the wall near the sink while cleaning paint brushes. There was even a streak of paint that looked like someone’s failed initiative to finish the walls once upon a time.
We moved into this house 15 years ago and have done many renovations. I had always wanted to paint the laundry room too, but we were holding out for that elusive moment when my husband would have time to finish the drywall. It’s obviously not happening in a hurry, so I decided that I would at least clean up what I had to work with.
As I painted, I couldn’t believe how easily the stains were covered up. Previously multi-coloured blotches were now a uniform “antique white.” It amazed me that, with every stroke of my brush, I had the power to cover flaws that had amassed over the house’s 50-year lifespan.
The more I worked the more I realized that, while my husband would definitely notice the change in the room, he would be hard pressed to remember how bad things had actually been. The changes were happening in front of my eyes, and even I was starting to forget the past. The paint covered “a multitude of sins,” I said aloud. Then it dawned on me that God’s forgiveness is just like that paintbrush.
He doesn’t care that we are works in progress with edges incomplete and work left to be done. He paints over our sin anyway, leaving a fresh surface and forgetting previous blemishes.
In Father Mike Schmitz’s talk entitled I’m Sorry vs. Thank You – just Google it – he outlines the three “moves” of forgiveness. First we must ask for forgiveness, then forgiveness is offered, and finally we must receive that forgiveness. If we become stuck in the first move and continue to say, “’I’m sorry,’ even after forgiveness has been offered, what we’re doing is saying “I don’t receive your forgiveness.”
Father Mike adds, “If I translate and transform ‘I’m sorry’ into ‘Thank you,’ … I’m allowing a future to be possible. If I keep saying ‘I’m sorry,’ what I’m saying is, ‘No, your offer of mercy wasn’t really enough. I still feel bad.’ So, I negate them and I keep making them … offer mercy again … Thank you means I receive your forgiveness.”
Father Mike gave examples of how to combine these words, such as saying “I’m sorry; thank you for your patience.” In these interactions, one party offers forgiveness while the other offers gratitude. In such exchanges, relationships grow and futures are built.
He gives the same recommendations for our relationships with God. When praying, “… if you have something to be sorry for, say that but, if God has already forgiven you, then we need to change that ‘I’m sorry’ to ‘Thank you’ because God doesn’t want us to live in the past. He wants to live with us now. I’m sorry is about the past. Thank you is about the present and about the future. God’s calling you to say ‘I’m sorry’ when you’ve done something wrong, and then He’s calling you to say ‘Thank you’ when He’s given you His love.”
As in our human relationships, with God there are three moves of forgiveness. We must apologize, hear His offer of forgiveness, and ultimately receive it. Regardless of the nature or number of our transgressions, God willingly takes the time to paint over the past so that, together, we can move forward with a clean slate and a bright future.
With this in mind, what could possibly be left to say but, “Thank you?”
