Apologizing....

Apologizing......
Thinking about that alot this week.
Apologizing is powerful. There is something about learning the art of apologizing. The theory of apologizing is greater than you can imagine. I read that studies show that if doctors apologized to their patients when they have made a medical error, there would be a lower rate of medical malpractice. I had some problems with a few students during Dance Motion at AIS. The girls involved just recently apologized to me. This is an email I got from one girl named Rayna.
"Dear Ms. Adams, I don't know where to begin. I am pretty sure you have heard everything that has happened. I want to say I am so incredibly sorry. I was the one who texted your boyfriend. I don't even know what I was thinking. I really wanted to tell you sorry in person and explain myself, but with dance outside of school I can never have time to find you in the dance studio. Thus, I am writing to you via e-mail. In an English essay, I put in my experience and my lessons learned which I gave to Ms. Gray and Ms. Webster and I will also give it to you at the bottom of this email. I was in a really weird mood, Ms. Adams, and I lost my mind for a second thinking it was a joke. I had no intentions of hurting you or anyone, but I didn't realize what I was doing at the time. I was suspended for 3 days, as you probably know, which was fair as for punishment. But I just wanted to say sorry, personally. Thank you so much for putting up with me and dance motion. Afterwards, I realized how stupid I was and came to Dmo practice a lot and worked hard to do a good show. I was really scared to tell you. But maybe you should read the essay to. It's pretty descriptive. It was on a book I read in class so you can probably skip the second and third paragraph. Thank you so much."
This was her essay...
"On Friday, the first day of February, at approximately 5: 15 pm, I made the biggest mistake of my 15 years of living. This mistake then haunted me for the following two weeks. With little to no sleep, I tossed and turned trying to answer the lingering questions in my head; do I tell her? Will this blow over? Why would I do such a thing? Etcetera. On February 1st, I watched my fellow dancers walk out of the cold studio and onto the stage, leaving me in the dance studio to practice my piece. Due to privacy reasons, I will keep my explanation of the event brief leaving out some details. Also, I will not speak of any other people involved given that this is my story and my lesson and not theirs. Continuing, I was pressured to get my piece finished given there was only a week left before the big show. I was also frustrated that my dance teacher would not let me use the stage to practice my dance. However, I dealt with what I had and practiced my kicks and turns in the dance studio. Since it was Friday, I was excited and happy to go home and meet my friends. Therefore, my mood was very odd, combining frustration, excitement, and pressure. As I walked over to pause the blasting music from the stereo, I saw a shiny, gold cell phone. I easily recognized this phone, it was my Samsung, or at least that’s what I thought it was. However, I was confused when the background of the phone did not display my friends and me, but instead displayed a different girl. Right then I realized that the phone did not belong to me but instead to my dance teacher, Ms. Adams. Given my crazy mood and a weird moment in my life, I scrolled to the text message tab. There I texted a short, terrible phrase and quickly sent it to a friend of my teacher. Realizing what I just did, I started to panic. My body started to shake and my fingers raced back to the text message menu. I quickly went to the sent message and pressed delete. I distinctively remembered hoping that the delete button would save all of my future troubles, but this was just the beginning to a bad couple of days. I then had no other choice but to press that green play button and continue my dance. Of course like every other mistake, I could not get away with my actions. I started being questioned by a teacher, however, due to panic and worry of the consequences I refused to come to reality with the truth and instead not say anything at all. My common answers to her questions were constantly “I do not know, I have no idea”. Like others would do, I decided to ignore my problems in order to protect myself. A week later, the show was over and I thought my problem was too. Every second of my life consisted of tormenting myself with questions, asking myself if this would finally be over. Finally, I could not take the pressure anymore and accepted reality; I told my teacher it was I who performed such a horrible task. Due to my irresponsible actions, I was set in front of a committee, being asked to recreate the story. As a consequence to my action, I was suspended for three days. Thus, here I am on the second day of being home, writing my story. I learned that running away from a problem is the worst possible idea. I learned that one has to face the truth in the present because if it does linger to the past it will reappear in the future. Yes, this will remain regret but I am also very glad to have learned such a valued lesson so early in my life."
Pretty touching because she was not required to write about this situation. I told both the girls that they were forgiven before I even knew who actually sent the text. No hard feelings. Forgiving is probably equal as important as apologizing. As Christians we are require to be like Christ-like.... forgiving and forgetting.
What happens when the person you apologize too as a hard time forgiving. Well, that is very painful. I'm sure you've been there as have I. I hate hurting people and I hate disappointing people. I was thinking back on past mistakes.... I started beating myself up for them even though I apologized and truly meant it. I have to be able to forgive myself also and move on whether or not they forgave me. Life is difficult in so many ways. I pray for God's help with forgiving others, forgiving myself and for others to forgive me. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone!