My three-year-old continues to be my best teacher. Yesterday he knocked some stuff off the counter. When we called him on it, he apologized immediately. But I said to him, “Thank you for your apology, but it doesn’t fix this mess. Clean it up.” And that’s when it hit me – this is EXACTLY what I do with God! I screw up, God forgives me, then I move on. But too often I don’t stop to see clearly what mess I may have created and take steps to clean it up. I miss the fact that being forgiven merely enables me to clean up my mess, but doesn’t clean it up on its own. This is a basic reality. In fact, this truth is something A.A. gets quite well. Step 9 of the 12 steps reads: “[We] made direct amends to such people (persons harmed) wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”
My messes are rarely physical in nature at this age, but it’s much more difficult to clean up spiritual and emotional messes, isn’t it? A physical mess I can usually take care of myself, but “cleaning up” in the invisible realm usually means admitting I’m wrong and asking someone else for forgiveness or other assistance. It means putting me at risk of being rejected. But it needs to be done, otherwise I find myself facing a years-old mess, which has hardened and festered and is really ugly and pernicious. It’s much harder to begin the cleanup effort when things have reached this stage.
I also find it’s much more difficult to make internal amends than it is to make amends to others. When I’m the one doing the hurting and receiving the injury, I usually need some third-party intervention in order to gain enough perspective to be able to forgive myself and move on. But if the hurt is allowed to continue unhealed, it has dramatic, destructive effects long-term.
What mess do you have to clean up? If something comes to mind, don’t delay, but take a concrete step toward that healing today.
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