I hear it all to often, I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission. Not the best thinking for a lot of things. Others have a harder time admitting their faults and mistakes. Time is spent arguing or finger-pointing in all directions except back at themselves.
I have my faults, alot of them, I make mistakes, I fail but I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong. I’m also not afraid to ask for forgiveness. I have done things that have embarrassed myself, my family and my name. I let others lead me down paths that were not where my journey was taking me. Each time I had to stop, backtrack and look someone in the eye and ask for forgiveness.
Raising a teenager is difficult and scary, especially one that looks and acts just like you. We had an argument last night that on paper looks like something out of an SNL skit. He continues to lock the bathroom everytime he goes in, it’s petty on my behalf but its something I have asked over and over again to stop locking the door. I took his phone last night, which was the end of the world to him. I said why did you lock the door… his response I didn’t. WAIT!? WHAT? You were the only one in there, your brother was with me and your mom was folding clothes. If you didn’t lock the door then who did? response.. I don’t know, it wasn’t me. I mean how does one try to win this argument. I let it go for the evening and will pick back up tomorrow. His biggest fault is being too proud, to the point where he will argue that a magical force locked a door that only he was behind. Simply say my bad, I forgot. It would have been a better answer and one to forgiveness.
I will say he gets the pride factor honest. I can admit one of my biggest faults is being too competitive. At age 30 I had a double hernia, I was recovering from surgery, Jess and Landon had went out of town for a few days. I get a call from my softball team saying we need you or we will have to forfeit. I said okay, I will come, put me at first and I will just stand there. I get to the field and our entire team was there, they already had me penciled in to play my spot in LC. We were playing a good team and they wanted to win, of course being competitive I didn’t say no. I went to LC and told them not to tell the wife I was playing. First inning a ball is hit into the gap, without thinking I run after it and dove to catch it. About mid-dive that thought bubble arose and said You’re an Idiot!. The umpire stopped the game and started yelling at me. Said I’m going to call your wife, the team all said what are you doing. I said you put me out here, instincts took over and I put winning over everything else. I think I’ve gotten better… I think. So, needless to say my phone starts ringing, that was was tough call to answer too.
Even worse was the call I had to make to the wife after I got out of surgery for cutting off the end of my finger. She was at Landon’s baby shower, I had the accident and didn’t want to ruin her day so I didn’t call until I had came out of surgery and the party was over. Yea, that was a tough one. It was hey how are you, Where are you? How’d the party go? You didn’t answer my question. Then she heard the hospital noises. Are you at the hospital? Yelp, just got out of surgery. I still haven’t gotten fully forgiven for that and it’s been almost 14 years.
So, yes there is some Bradley stubbornness that the boys get honest and causes some faults and leads to a lot of asking for forgiveness. I however am proud of my name, what it represents and everything that comes with it. There’s things I wish I could take back that I’ve done, things that I’ve said that has embarrassed or tarnished my name.
At the end of the day I have people that love and care about me, my name and my faults. I will continue to work to honor all those that came before me and those that will come after.
I will continue to mess up, my faults will continue to have me asking for forgiveness and that’s okay. I will continue to be me and be the best me I can.
We all have our faults. We all mess up. Don’t be afraid to admit them, work to fix them and ask others to forgive you for them.
Enjoy your day.
TCB