Just a youthful boy I was, playing ball in our back yard.
       I dreamed of having my picture on the front of a baseball card.
Dad told me, "Please don’t hit the ball in the back yard, son."
       "Oh Dad, I’m not hurting anything," I said. "I’m only having fun."
"But son, you’re going to break a window. Please listen to me."
       "Dad, don’t worry. I won’t either. You just wait and see."
My dad went back inside the house, leaving me to play.
       I remember that incident clearly as if it were yesterday.
Like always, he turned out to be right. For in no time at all,
       through a window with one hard swing went my new baseball.

My dad came out and to my surprise he didn’t say very much.
       I expected him to become angry at me, begin yelling and such.
But instead he just sent me to my room to wait, sit and think.
       There I sat with nothing to do but stare at the wall and blink.
After awhile dad came in and said, "I want to talk to you, son!"
       I soon realized how wrong I was by the trust that been undone.
My father loves me very much so he forgave me right away.
       He said I was free to go and in my room I need not stay.
My father paid for the window and everything seemed as it was.
       But I felt bad for not listening and for the grief I know I caused.

A few years later I asked him if he remembered the window incident.
       He said, "Yes," and he even remembered how much money he’d spent.
I told him again how sorry I was and how I wish I had listened.
       He said, "I’ve forgiven you son and at least it was a good lesson."
Several years went by and I had long since been on my own.
       I talked to my father again one day upon my returning home.
I asked him if he still remembered that window I broke as a child.
       He smiled and said, "Yes son," in a voice so gentle and mild.
It’s hard to explain the feeling I have for what I once did.
       Even though it happened so long ago when I was just a kid.
You see, my relationship with my father is very important indeed.
       That’s why being completely forgiven was such a very strong need.

Many more years had passed by before I asked my father again
       if he still remembered the window I had broken ...way back when...
He said, "Son, you have asked that question several times of me."
       "I know," I replied. "But I can’t help it. I think about it constantly.
The memory pains me greatly and it brings to my mind a sting."
       It was then he smiled and said, "Son, I don’t remember a thing!"
And so it is with the wrong we do. It’s fairly easy to receive forgiveness.
       But more times than not it takes a lot before we receive forgetfulness.
For faith and trust are as a house of cards. Laboriously build, easily destroyed.
       But where time, patience, love and trustworthiness are consistently deployed,
you'll find forgiveness and forgetfulness will come, no matter what you've done.
       It will be that way with your friends and family, as well as the Father and His Son.