“Seeking Forgiveness”

by Dr. Larry Morris

There is a Spanish story about a father and son who became estranged.  The son ran away from home and the father went after him.  He searched for the son for many months, but to no avail.  Finally, in desperation, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper.  The ad read:  “Dear Juan, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday.  All is Forgiven, your Father.  On Saturday, 800 Juans showed-up, looking for forgiveness from their fathers. 

While many times in life we find ourselves willing to forgive someone for a wrong committed against ourselves, it is less usual for us to ask others’ forgiveness for what we have done to them.  Yet sometimes, when we are troubled or feel out of synch with our life and ourselves, we may need to simply ask someone for their forgiveness.  It may be for something seemingly minor or it may be for a major life issue; it may be for be something that just occurred or for something from deep in our past—but whatever it is, when the time is right, we can ask for forgiveness, receive forgiveness and experience a healing.