Let me tell you a story I call the Parable of the Rock Chip.
Seven years ago we bought a new car for me. I no longer needed a mini van, as our girls were starting to leave home, and so we found a nice compact car for me to drive around that was going to be great for my needs.
A few weeks after the purchase, I headed out on a trip across country with two of my daughters. In Colorado a truck in front of us caused a rock to fly into my brand new windshield and chipped it. I was so startled by this and it was so frustrating to have it right there in my line of sight. Sadie mentioned that we should get it filled when we got back to Mount Vernon, but I was simply mad that my beautiful new windshield would be blemished in this way.
We returned home from our trip and she again reminded me that I should go and get the rock chip repaired. Instead, I chose to be angry that this truck caused the rock to hit my windshield and I didn’t take my car to the shop. Over time, dirt and moisture got into the tiny cracks and when the heat from the sun hit the rock chip, the cracks started to spread across the windshield. My once small rock chip turned into a crack that covered almost the entire width of my windshield.
Looking back on this now, I realize how ridiculous my reaction was to the situation. But isn’t this what we do when someone offends us? Especially when, like the truck that just drove on, the other person doesn’t even know that they’ve done any damage to us? We allow things that have hurt us to fester and grow just like the rock chip did on my windshield when we could just take care of the problem right away.
Growing up, my mother would tell my siblings and me a story of an Indian Chief whose son had been killed accidentally by an errant arrow on a hunting trip by the boys in the tribe. The Chief was so angry with the boy who had shot the arrow that the boy left the tribe in fear for his life. The Chief vowed to kill the boy if he ever saw him again and so he prepared some special arrows that had poisoned tips.
One day the Chief was out by himself and his horse stumbled and the Chief was thrown from his horse. He landed on the poisoned arrows, which pierced his side. He ended up dying from the arrows that he had intended to use to kill someone else. My mother would use this story to remind us that if we didn’t forgive others, hate would consume us. The story was stark, but it helped me to realize that carrying around hate, like the Chief carried around the arrows, wasn’t going to help me at all.
Not taking care of my windshield when the chip was small only led to a much bigger problem with a much larger and more expensive solution. The same holds true when we let grudges grow and when we let disagreements divide. Some could argue that I still had a windshield, so what is the problem with having some cracks in it? Having the cracks makes the windshield less effective just as putting off forgiveness keeps us from living our best lives.
Coincidentally, in August my husband and I were in Wisconsin in the car that I currently have and a rock came flying at us from an unsecured load and hit my windshield and caused a rock chip. I wasn’t going to let my mistake from seven years ago happen again to this car. It took a few weeks for me to have the time to get it into the shop, but they were able to fill the chip and I won’t have a spreading crack across the windshield like last time.
I learned another valuable lesson for this Parable: forgive right away. The glass technician told me that in the weeks that it had taken me to come in, dirt had gotten into the cracks and that hindered their ability to completely fill the chip. While I had been congratulating myself with addressing the situation and planning to take care of it, dirt was seeping into the crevices and causing damage. So now, even though the chip is taken care of, it is slightly visible on the windshield as a reminder of what happened.
Forgiveness is hard, especially when we’ve been really hurt by someone. But living with hate is even harder; it is consuming and exhausting. The longer we let a situation go without resolution, the worse it will get. Offering forgiveness changes everything and allows us to move forward without that heavy weight stymieing our every day. When we forgive, we can literally see clearer, just like a windshield without cracks and rock chips.