Forgive Before the Offence is Complete

My grandfather has a saying, “Forgive before the offence is complete.” I always wondered how someone could do that; what it looked like.

I love boating! When I was a kid my uncle and my dad made me fall in love with the water. My grandfather owned a ski boat and was so kind to let us use it. We would talk my dad into taking us out on the lake on a Saturday and we would ski, knee board and tube.  I loved it!! 

The hardest part about boating is getting the boat in and out of the water.  When you boat on a lake you have to back a trailer holding the boat down a ramp with other boaters on either side of you doing the same thing and usually a line of boats and trailers ready to take your spot so they can get their boat taken care of. (No Pressure)  You begin by making a U turn with the boat on the boat ramp.  Then pull straight and begin backing up.  As you back up you have to keep the trailer straight which means turning the steering wheel opposite of the way you back up a car. (By the way don’t run into any of the other launchers.)  Once you are straight you have to back the boat up until the vehicle you are driving is partly underwater.  The next step is to unhook the boat and let it float out with a driver and other passengers who start the boat and take it over to the dock.  The vehicle driver then parks the trailer and walks to the dock to meet the boat.  (Sounds simple right.)  

Well that is the easy part.  Then after you play and have a great time you have to put the boat back on the trailer and pull it out of the water.  To do this the boat drops the vehicle driver off at the dock and we begin the process again.  The vehicle driver, again backs the trailer up with lots of people around and everyone waiting in line to pull their boat out of the water.  After the Uturn and backing up straight until the trailer and back of the vehicle are in the water.  Then the driver of the boat must line the boat up with the trailer and use the thrust of the boat to drive onto the  trailer. (Without giving the boat too much power.)  Oh, did I mention that the reason you got off the water is because the water is choppy and the wind has picked up?  There are also boats one either side of you trying to get back to their trailers so you have to be careful not to hit anyone as the wind pushes you away or to the side of your destination.  It is a stressful experience. 

I was always grateful that my dad had experience with trailers and boats and didn't have any trouble backing the boat up to put it in the water. I always volunteered to drive the boat out and in so I wouldn't have to back up the trailer.

I used to joke that the man I married had to be able to back up a boat. Imagine my delight when I found out the man I was going to marry also loved boats and knew how to back up the trailer. We have continued to boat throughout the years thanks to our kind parents and grandparents who let us use their boats.

One summer we were given access to a very nice fleet of speed boats. They were much bigger than I was used to and cost a lot more money. This made me nervous and because of their size they were harder to control in tight spaces.  They were great on the open lake but putting them back on the trailer was very difficult. 

As always my job was to drive the boat onto the trailer.  I tried this particular day but the launch was so crowded and the wind so strong I felt unqualified and scared.  My husband ended up backing up the trailer then meeting me at the dock and driving the boat onto the trailer and pulling the boat out of the water.  It was very time consuming and not practical at all.

I knew this way of boating wouldn't work and I had to take over one of the jobs if we wanted to do this again. I decided that maybe backing up the trailer would be easier than messing up the expensive boat by ramming it into something.

With much patience and love my husband spent an evening teaching me how to back up my dad's little fishing boat. After a couple of hours I felt that I could probably back up the large trailer. 

A few days later I let my husband back the boat in, I drove it off and we had a delightful day on the lake.  As the wind picked up and we decided to call it a day it was time to prove my abilities.  I walked up to the truck, pulled it around and began to back it down the ramp. I couldn't believe how everything went so smoothly. The trailer got in the water and my husband got the boat on the trailer.  It was the most seem less retrailering we had ever done.  

Finally we were ready for me to pull the boat out. I knew it would take a lot of power to pull this big heavy boat out of the water. I took the energy break off, put the truck in reverse and floored it. 

Then I heard screaming and yelling. I slammed on the breaks wondering why the boat had not pulled forward. Then I realized what I had done. I had backed the trailer up even more. Now the truck was further in the water and the boat was floating; not sitting nicely on the trailer. 

My husband was frustrated, by backing up the trailer I made it more difficult to put the boat back on the trailer as now it was in the wrong position.  We worked, we pulled, we pushed, we spent about an hour trying to get the boat correctly put on the trailer.  During this time my younger children were hot and tired and yelling at each other.  They could feel the tension in the air and I was so sorry, it was all my fault.  Tempers were high and patience was thin.  We finally got the boat situated and I pulled it out of the water, forward this time.  I drove up the ramp and pulled over and waited for my husband to get out of the boat and talk to me about what happened.  

He got down from the boat and before I could say anything he looked me in the eye and said, “What happened, happened and I’m not going to bring it up again.”  

No reprimand, no demanding an apology or an explanation.  He had already forgiven me.  He wasn’t going to hang this over my head and mention it at embarrassing times.  He has never brought it up again and it is as if the event never happened.  We both know it did, but we both know I will never put the truck in reverse again.

My husband truly had “Forgiven before the offence was complete.”  Just as my Grandpa had told me to do.

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It taught me that I need to be quick to forgive.  God is quick to forgive, He may take a while answering prayers but He always forgives quickly.

What would our world be like if we forgave before the offence was complete?  What would our political situation look like, how about wars, fudes, etc.  How about our homes?  Can we let got of what our child did, of how our spouse wronged us?  Forgiveness can settle a lot of battles.  Let’s let go of our pride and our need to be right and let us forgive before the offence is complete.