Forgiveness is hard, very hard

Okay, I've been gone a couple days getting rid of the crud. Here I am again, and I'm right back into the tough issues, foremost being this idea of forgiveness.

As a mentor once said, "It's the toughest knot to tie." It is.

Monday night I watched a half of the Atlanta-Philadelphia game. Know this: I'm a New Orleans Saints football fan. That means I always, always root against Atlanta. Till Monday night. They were playing against the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, who was the Falcons quarterback until he was found to be torturing dogs in a dog fighting ring and was sentence to two years in prison.

I have had tremendous difficult forgiving this man. While others fall at his feet, loving everything he does on the football field, all I see is a dog torturer. I can't forgive. There I admit it. Though I talk a good game about forgiveness, teaching it and so forth, I've had a real problem with forgiving this man. Now, I want no harm to come to him. But I don't see how you go right back to where you were as a person for what you did. Was it humans he was torturing? No. It was helpless creatures. For fun and money. Ughhh.

Then I read this morning this story: A kindergartener in rural Sweet Springs, Missouri, brought a bag of crystal meth and a crack pipe to school for show-and-tell, but an alert teacher kept the boy from sharing his treasure with others at the school, an official said on Tuesday.

"He was very excited when he got to school," Superintendent Donna Wright said of the September 6 incident. "But I don't think he knew what he had."

A teacher recognized the drugs and pipe and police were called to the elementary school. "It didn't ever get into the classroom," Wright added.

"That was a first for show-and-tell in this town," Police Chief Richard Downing said. He added that the boy's mother, Michelle Cheatham, 32, was arrested later on drug charges and released on bail.

How does one forgive a mother who would put her child in that position? How does one? And Jesus said we are to forgive that famous 70 times 7.

Jesus never said it was easy to follow, only to follow. Pick up that cross and follow. Forgiveness might just be my cross.