I'm Sorry

When you apologize for some dastardly deed—or some not-so-dastardly deed—is your apology good enough? I have felt for as long as I can remember that saying “I’m sorry” wasn’t good enough.

If forgiveness was going to be mine, I was going to have to work for it. Perform! Show my contrition and shame and prove I was genuinely sorry! Only after this penance was done would I regain the standing I had lost.

My philosophy has been that somewhere between the small matters, where a sincere apology is enough, and the larger sins is a place that requires more than “I’m sorry” affords. It is an imbalance that morphs and moves based upon circumstances, emotion, and perception. The decisions that transport me to this place render a shame more profound than “I’m sorry” will cover.

There are consequences to sin, but I’m not talking about consequences. I’m talking about falling out of favor and what it takes to regain that loss.

Any important relationship that possesses the potential to fall short carries with it the potential to lose favor when I sin and cross into that fuzzy “no man’s land” between a small matter and a big deal.

There’s nothing like an example, though—next time.