Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven us. (Ephesians 4:32)
A new year. A new start…or a start again. Does anything actually change in us when we turn the calendar to a new year? This is why New Year’s resolutions have a long history of being broken in early January. We can redirect our focus, reshuffle our priorities, or realign our intentions, but this rarely yields lasting change.
As we parents provide loving care for extraordinary children, our days are filled with necessary routines and require attention to details to ensure needs are met. A change in the calendar year doesn’t bring change for many of us; it brings another 365 days of extraordinary moments.
Kindness, compassion, and forgiveness create extraordinary moments, and these fruits of faith in our lives do bring change. An act of kindness has a positive impact on the giver and the receiver; in the context of a relationship, kindness aids closeness. Compassion, a feeling of tender-heartedness or an act of providing loving care, requires connection; we can only have compassion for someone when we enter into their space or touch them. Parenting children with extraordinary needs requires a depth of kindness and compassion that runs dry when we rely on our own resources to muster them.
The only real, lasting, eternal change comes through God’s work in our lives and the lives of those we love. Because Christ died to reconcile us to God, we have peace with God. We forgive others because we’ve been forgiven so much! That truly does make things new. A wise pastor once said, “The one who forgives is the one who pays.” Forgiveness doesn’t mean that the cost of the misdeed magically dissolves; forgiveness means that the cost of the misdeed is paid by the one forgiving. Once the cost of the act is paid, it no longer exists. The slate is wiped clean. We begin again. No division exists when forgiveness is practiced. Like beginning a new year, we turn the page and are forward-looking.
If this new year finds you facing the same old parenting challenges, find comfort and inspiration in God’s Word. “But God, because he is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! He also raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He did this so that, in the coming ages, he might demonstrate the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7). In Christ, we find kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.
Prayer:
God, thank you for the kindness, compassion, and forgiveness you demonstrated to me through Christ’s death on the cross. In this new year, empower me to demonstrate your kindness, compassion, and forgiveness to others. May they see you through my words and deeds. In Christ’s
name I pray. Amen.
by Rebeckah Ellinghuysen