The Frying Pan and the Fire

Sometimes my wife calls me a perfectionist and sometimes she is right. While it’s not necessarily a bad thing to try to do everything really well, it’s far more important for me to recognize that I am never going to be perfect and that I do make mistakes and unfortunately I do commit sins. I hate it when I mess up and I try not to…but sometimes when I make a small mistake, I compound it and it feels like I’m going from the frying pan into the fire! Considering it was 106 degrees when I “messed up” last week, that’s probably a pretty appropriate feeling.

The sin I committed was getting angry and losing my temper when I shouldn’t have. Although I would like to think it was a small sin, I have a feeling that sins are not measured on a scale of 1-10. You either sin or you don’t and there’s no in-between. My father was instrumental in teaching me right from wrong and he taught me that any sin, even the sin of omission, or complacency, is wrong. But he also taught me the value of forgiveness.

It was a lesson I learned when I was about 8 years old. Both of my parents were smokers back then so there were always matches laying around the house. I was a good kid, polite and well-mannered and would never hurt a flea, but I was also extremely curious and those matches were really tempting. Believe it or not I poured some gasoline from the garage into a small soup can, grabbed the matches and went out behind the back yard fence to feed my curiosity. Within a matter of minutes, I managed to spill the fired up can of flames and had to run screaming to my Dad that the fence was on fire! He was furious at first but after he saw that I was okay, he grabbed the hose and put out the fire. Then he slowly turned and marched me to my bedroom.

We sat on the bed and had a long talk about the dangers of playing with fire. He reminded me that he was going to be deployed overseas soon, for a very long time, and that I had to step up and become the man of the house. I could see it in his eyes and by the way he spoke that he was way more serious than usual, which scared me. But looking back now I realize my Dad was scared too, scared because he would soon have to leave a wife and two young children behind to struggle on their own. I truly respected my Dad and loved him intensely, so I felt terrible about what I did. Which makes what happened next a real surprise. After making me promise to never do it again, he forgave me. He should have spanked me, grounded me or at least put me up for adoption, but he didn’t. He hugged me, told me how much he loved me and that he was counting on me. I will never forget the love and compassion I saw in his eyes that day. It was a lesson in forgiveness that I will never forget. In fact, the next time I start to get angry and go from the frying pan into the fire, I will remember the lessons of love and forgiveness that my earthly father…and my heavenly Father… have both shown me by their examples. 

Lieutenant Allen B. Thrailkill, USMC (circa 1963)

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.

~ Paul Boese