It was just another day on the playground.

The children were all playing and running in a hundred different directions.  Several girls were playing hopscotch on the adjoining blacktop.  A group of boys were involved in a game of football.  Other kids were swinging, sliding on the slides and swinging on the monkey bars.

And, in the corner of the playground, a grievous crime was being committed...

...Billy was pulling Susie's pigtails!

Susie angrily jerked away and went crying to the teacher.  Billy was sentenced to ten minutes standing in the corner for his crime.

The next morning, during recess time, Billy and Susie were once again together on the playground.  The events of yesterday were far from their minds and they laughed and happily played as if nothing had ever happened.

That is what it means to forgive.  To hold no grudge, to bear no bitterness, to treat no differently, to act as if nothing ever happened.You see, children are very forgiving.  When someone does something to anger them, hurt them or offend them, in most cases, it's  forgotten in a half hour or so and certainly by the next day.

Kids just seem to have the knack for "getting over it."  They get on to more important things like enjoying their young lives.  What a waste it would be for them to sit around and be angry and miss out on the joys of recess and friendship.  How sad it would be to pout and whine and have those feelings of resentment and bitterness build up inside.

Kids just have more important things to do than to harbor ill will.

Now, for adults, it seems there is a whole new set of rules when it comes to forgiveness.  We are kind of like Santa Claus when it comes to forgiving others..."we're making a list and checking it twice, we're gonna find out who's naughty and nice."  You see, we have a tendency to "forgive" but not forget.  We instantaneously scan our list and recall anything someone has ever done to offend us...and we treat them accordingly.  Haven't made me mad lately?  OK, we can be friends.  Offended me this month?  I'm not speaking to you...and better yet I AM going to speak ABOUT you!

I tried to come up with a logical explanation as to why, when we "grow up" we find it more difficult to forgive.  I thought I had a really good answer...but it turned out to be a false alarm.  I thought that it must be because the things children get angry about are petty.  You know, they get upset about things that aren't really important and don't really matter.  Things like Billy pulling Susie's pigtails, and David not picking Joe to be on his team and Lisa laughing at Beth.

As I said, that theory was a false alarm, because we adults get angry over some pretty petty things ourselves!  And, yet, we have a hard time forgiving.

Maybe the problem is  we forget that we make a lot of mistakes and offend people and sin just like everyone else does.  Perhaps we forget that none of us are perfect.  It could be we forget to pull the plank out of our own eye before we start picking at splinters in the eyes of others, and that is why we have a hard time forgiving.

Maybe the reason we have a hard time forgiving and forgetting is because we forget that we are forgiven!

Once again, we need to return to the child-like characteristics and this time add forgiveness to our list.   Like the little girl said in her prayer to the Lord about forgiveness, "Forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."

After all, we produce a lot of trash ourselves!