Read: Colossians 3:12-15; 1 John 1:9

Samuel ran into the house and threw his jacket on the table. “Weather report,” he panted. “It’s pouring!”

“Ohhhh noooo!” Olivia rushed over. “You threw your wet jacket on my seascape painting for school—it’ll be ruined!”

“It’s a picture of ocean waves—all I did was add more water.” Samuel laughed.

Olivia lifted Samuel’s jacket. “See? The paint ran! Why didn’t you look first?”

“Why’d you leave your painting on the table?”

“The paint was drying! Aren’t you even going to apologize?”

“Fine,” Samuel said with a shrug. “I’m sorry. Are you happy now?”

“That’s it?” Tears filled Olivia’s eyes. “My painting is ruined, and you’re only sorta-sorry? Then I only sorta-forgive you.”

Dad walked into the room. “I can hear you down the hall,” he said. “You know, God’s good at forgiveness. Hasn’t He forgiven each of you when you’ve asked Him?”

“Yeah, always,” Samuel said.

Dad sat at the table. “Because Jesus died to pay for our sin, God promises to forgive. When we tell God we’re sorry for wrong things we’ve done, He completely forgives us—He doesn’t sort-of forgive us. Because God forgives our sin, shouldn’t we forgive others?”

Olivia sighed. “Yeah, we should.”

Dad looked at Samuel. “You were careless and ruined Olivia’s painting—but you weren’t really sorry, were you? And Olivia, you can’t sort-of forgive. You either forgive—or you don’t.

“Olivia,” Samuel said. “Dad’s right. I’m sorry I ruined your painting.”

Olivia wiped her tears. “Well, if God can forgive me, I can forgive you.”

“You know,” Dad said, “after God forgives us, He does something amazing. He restores our relationship with Him and reminds us of His love and kindness.”

Samuel gave Olivia a hug, and an idea flashed in his head. “Leave the room for a minute, would you? But Dad, you stay. I’ll need your help.”

Olivia gave him a funny look, but left. Two minutes later Samuel called her back. He’d put fresh paper on the table and had dad pull up a soundtrack of ocean waves on his phone. “There’s still time to paint it over,” Samuel said. “Wanna try?”

Olivia smiled. “You turned a weak apology into the best one ever!”

–Matt Shoemaker

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