Someone bugged me today. Someone said something that rankled and hit me where it hurt. This time it was in the area of my parenting. Now, it wasn’t a shot, per se, it was that I said something to my child and they jumped in and added a comment that I thought shouldn’t be said. So I was bugged. And I still am, I have to admit.

I spent a part of today going about my business but every once in a while the incident niggled at me. It pinched and little pops of anger came into my head. Little snippets of conversation that my imagination made up of “what I should have saids” and “when I confront them I’ll” and so on. I’ve been praying and trying to temper the snit I’m working myself into because I do realize that in certain instances there are extenuating circumstances and this person didn’t mean to align themselves against me. This person was coming off of a hard week, battling things that make them unhappy and probably just reacted in the moment, trying to make everything ok for everybody so that their time would be easier.

This got me thinking about forgiveness, and in particular, the verse in Luke where Jesus talks about how we are to treat those whose words or actions hit us where it hurts.

“If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt” Luke 6:29

I got emotionally slapped and thank you, but no, I don’t want to go in for another round. And I don’t think it’s healthy to be a martyr to other people’s bad behavior. But I think this verse teaches us something about forgiveness and grace. As I’m processing this situation I was in, as I’m praying and trying to temper how big an issues this really is or isn’t, I need to take myself out of seeing the other person as a boogeyman and see deeper. I need to be gracious in my hurt.

If I’m going to be gracious in hurt in a healthy-non-destructive-non-enabling sort of way, what can this verse teach me. I think this verse can teach me that sometimes people say things unintentionally. Sometimes people say things because they’ve had just as bad a day as I have and words come tumbling out when they shouldn’t. Sometimes people are genuinely trying to be kind and I’m the one whose had a bad day and is raw so close to the surface. It means that instead of having to go and ream out the person for what they said, I try to extend grace where I would hope for grace. To deliberately seek to believe all the good I know about that person instead of letting my hurt and anger turn them into something my head and heart know they’re not. It means that we give each other breathing space and realize that we all goof up and are in need of grace. That sometimes it’s just a mistake. It’s not intentionally hurtful, it wouldn’t hurt so much if my day had been different, it wouldn’t be the camel-breaking straw if it had happened an hour ago. It’s seeing that I have a measure of control of how I love other people through their mistake. It’s giving them a second chance by extending grace to them just as I pray they would do, and have done, for me.