Forgiveness

I'm grateful for forgiveness. I was taught another lesson this week by my students. (Most of my stories come from them...sorry if that gets old!) One little boy pushed another little boy down at the end of recess this week. They both came in crying. The boy who fell came in first crying because his hands hurt. He told me the other boy had pushed him. Then the other boy came in crying. I asked what had happened and he said he pushed him down. I asked why and he said he didn't know. He had no excuse at all for it. I told him to think about it and we'd chat about it later.

The class got going on their science work. It was a simple day...we watched a short video about the overview of rocks to begin our rock unit. They were all taking notes on the things they were learning (you should see 2nd graders taking notes...they learn 100x what they would learn just listening). The "pusher" was still feeling so bad so he got a paper out and wrote a whole apology note to the "victim." He brought the note to show me. He had written how he was really really really sorry and he hoped the other boy didn't hate him and he still wanted to be friends with him.

He gave the note to the "victim." The "victim" read it and wrote on the back "its ou cae. But it hurt. But its ou cae." (It's okay. But it hurt. But it's okay.) After that, they were friends again, no more tears or anything.

These boys taught me how I need to be humble and ask for forgiveness all the time. Sometimes I don't know why I do wrong things, I just do. With or without an excuse, I need to ask for forgiveness. Likewise, I also need to be willing to forgive. Even if things do hurt, it's not my place to hold grudges and withhold forgiveness.


**On a funny note, the "victim" who wasn't sure how to spell "o-k" also asked me how to spell mp3 the other day. I told him to listen to what he was saying and he realized it was just the letters m p and the number 3. :)