Article April 21, 1986 Issue

Forgiving our debtors

KATHERINE JANE HILDRETH

Have you ever spent fruitless days wondering why the children don't write? Why your spouse won't do more things with you? Why your best friend hasn't called? You certainly have a right to better treatment, you tell yourself—and maybe tell the "offender" as well!

But does all this do any good? Isn't it just making debtors of our loved ones, putting a price on our love? Husbands and wives certainly have responsibilities toward one another by the very nature of their relationship. Yet in a profound sense, our only "rights," the only unalterable, unshakable "givens" on which we can depend, are the blessings of God's great love for us.

Yet think how often we deprive ourselves of these blessings by brooding over what we think other people should be—and aren't—doing for us; over what we have a "right" to expect as someone's parent or friend; over what someone "owes" us and isn't delivering.

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