Spider Guts and Forgiveness

During the month of May, our Elementary kids have been learning about forgiveness.  This is a great concept and Truth that I hope they learn while they are young.  Forgiveness can be really hard, and we need all the practice that we can get.  This week we watched a short video called “Spider Guts”.  It is a story of a girl whose older brother smashes spider guts on her face and in the ensuing fight accidentally knocks out her teeth.  The moral of the story is about forgiveness for free.  That even though she wants her brother to receive the most severe punishment possible, her mom wants her to show grace and forgiveness…for free…just like Christ did for us.  

I love saying that out loud…forgiveness for free.  It quickly brings to mind the reality of what Jesus did for us.  I know that having something concrete or physical helps in remembering things, and so I gave all of the kids plastic spider rings.  It is supposed to serve as a reminder to willingly forgive others.  So, if you see a spider ring around your house, I hope it now reminds you about forgiveness and that you will use it to prompt your kids as they learn about and extend forgiveness to people.  I am even going to try it myself with real spiders!  Instead of yelling for someone to squash it for me, I am going to try and think of forgiveness.  Forgiveness that has been given freely to me and forgiveness that I should in turn extend for free.