Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 22703 – 952
Here’s the haps:
I was over at Jacqui Murray‘s blog, Word Dreams, and realized that I had missed the start of this year’s challenge. If you were unaware of her site it is well worth taking a look. She has stuff for educators, writers, stuff about her work-in-progress, tech tips, and just all kinds of cool stuff. And she’s nice. I was reminded of the A – Z challenge when I visited her blog.
Anyway, I really wanted to do this again this year instead of waiting seven years this time. The question was where did I want to start? I could start at A and try to catch up that way or start with the day that it is and catch up somewhere in the middle. The challenge is to write a post every day in April except Sunday. So, thinking I was way behind I decided that since today is the fourth and D is the fourth letter I should start there. Except when I looked at a calendar I realized that today should really be C and I’m not nearly as far behind as I thought.
I had a little bit to say about it being April Fourth and starting with D so I will straighten out the rest of the mess as I go along.
April Fourth, 2009, was the day my dad died. I’ve talked about him here before and the fact that we have since discovered that I am not biologically related to him (Imprinted). My dad was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I could dwell on the not-so-wonderful-awesome-sauce side and fill my children’s and grandchildren’s heads with stories full of bitterness and unforgiveness or I could look at him as a man who was flawed but did the best he could. I realize that not everyone has the luxury of that choice but I do. I also know that in any situation, even the most horrible, forgiveness puts the power back in your hands. “To give up resentment or claim of requital.”
I had an awful lot more that I was thinking and feeling but I’m not quite able to articulate them. I’ve seen what it looks like when someone is bitter and unforgiving toward a parent and it’s not nice at all. As humans, we may not have the ability to forget (unless you’re like me then sometimes a short memory is a blessing) but we do have the power to give up resentment or claim of requital.
“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”
(Col 3:13 KJV)
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