A Clean Slate
A new year is here. A fresh start. A clean slate. Whatever bad things may have happened in 2022 are behind us and we are free to dream about the possibilities of 2023. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could start over TODAY with a clean slate in our marriage?
Julie: As a kid who played a lot of sports, I often had a gap between the end of the school day and the start of practice. I filled that gap by helping my favorite teacher clean the blackboard. No matter how many mistakes were made by kids working out math problems on that board, they were forgotten with each swipe of the eraser. There was something really satisfying about erasing the day’s work/mistakes and having a clean slate to start the next day.
John: The same is true in our marriage. I have the ability to help clean our slate when I have hurt Julie – not with the swipe of an eraser, but rather by making myself vulnerable enough to ask for her forgiveness. Her decision to forgive me when I have asked for her forgiveness cleans the slate so we can start fresh.
Julie: Like so many others, Winter Storm Elliot messed up our holiday plans. Our daughter’s flight was cancelled a few days before Christmas. Our son, who was planning to drive home with his fiancé, was facing a blizzard warning. What a disappointment it would be to not all be together for the second year in a row!
It was also Christmas Cookie Baking Day at our house. I became downright cranky going back and forth between the kitchen and the office, trying to juggle recipes and timers while dealing with crashing airline websites in an effort to reschedule our daughter’s flight – without luck. After spending 4.5 hours listening to the same voice recording/elevator music while on hold with the airline, only to have the representative hang up on me when I finally got through, I burst into tears. Elliot may have been brewing off to the west, but hurricane Julie was evolving into a perfect storm right here.
I snapped at John, feeling justified in my attitude of, “I have a right to be angry.” As he sulked in the other room, I stewed in my anger a bit and then realized that I had hurt him. I knew I needed to let go of my attitude, apologize to John, and then ask for his forgiveness, which he lovingly granted.
John: When Julie apologized and asked for my forgiveness, my attitude of indignation immediately began to change into one of empathy for what Julie was going through. My walls melted away and my heart softened immediately as I realized that she was in pain, and I needed to just love her like she deserves to be loved. I granted my forgiveness by looking straight into her eyes and said “I forgive you and love you with all my heart”. I sat beside her with my arm around her shoulder for a few quiet moments. We had both been powerfully changed by this experience, as I learned once again that both the forgiver and the one being forgiven can experience new and intense love through that experience. We had been given a fresh start, a clean slate, and it felt wonderful!
The choice is up to us to clean the slate in our relationship. It’s a little harder than just flipping a page on a calendar or recycling the old one while tacking up a new one. But the end result is the same. It is a new beginning, a clean slate. We are free to dream about the possibilities in our marriage – and make them a reality.
