Turns out, most people appreciate an apology… even if it has been a really long time since the incident, it still matters. Studies show that when you say that you are sorry, it restores the dignity of the hurt person and the offended party develops empathy towards the offender, which then transforms their feeling of hurt into forgiveness. But, its hard to do because… Pride. Our pride can keep us from doing some very needed things. It forces us to admit we did something wrong.
For example, there were a handful of times I was crazy bitchy (no other word for it) towards this lady who worked at the YMCA counter because she said I was too late to attend the body pump class. I was AWFUL to her, I even flung the schedule back at her. There was nothing she did wrong, this was competely my fault. At the time, I was pretty pregnant and in a world of pain with my girlfriends and the Y was my one place to do something for myself and she was jeopardizing that. Eventually, my friends and I worked our stuff out, and I had the baby… and now I was left with facing this poor woman every time I went into my gym.
I kept trying to convince myself that I wasn’t that bad to her… “Its been almost a year since I did that. She probably doesn’t even recognize me.” One day I got the nudge from God and the courage to aproach her. And I was shocked at how she was beyond generous with her forgiveness back to me. Turns out she did remember me, and that she noticed I was never like that with my kids or anyone else and she assumed it was just a bad day.
But I still needed to name the elephant in the room and own my poor behavior. I apologized and we moved on. Now when we see each other we smile, chat, and have a sweet little friendship.
SO EASY! And now I look forward to seeing her instead of cringing.
That is an example where I was clearly in the wrong. But what about when you both should apologize? What about when you hurt someone’s feelings and they also hurt yours?
Recently, I have felt God nudging me to be the initiator in apologizing. Like, “If this is one of my commands, don’t you want to be the first to do it?”
So, I’ve made it my own personal race–the race to be the first to apologize… because the other side of an apology is where I want to live… its the good life. 🙂