Two Essential Words

Two Essential Words

When you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.

Mark 11:25

In Love in the Time of Cholera, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez portrays a marriage that disintegrates over a bar of soap. In that culture, it was the wife’s job to keep the house in order, including the towels, toilet paper, and soap in the bathroom. One day Fermina forgets to replace the soap. Her husband, Juvenal, exaggerates the oversight: “I’ve been bathing for almost a week without any soap.” She vigorously denies forgetting to replace the soap, and she continues to do so for years. Although she indeed forgot, her pride is at stake, and she won’t back down. For the next seven months the two sleep in separate rooms and eat in silence. Their marriage had suffered a heart attack.

“Even when they were old and placid,” writes Márquez, “they were very careful about bringing it up, for the barely healed wounds could begin to bleed again as if they had been inflicted only yesterday.” How can a bar of soap ruin a marriage? The answer is actually simple: because neither partner would say, “Forgive me.” In fact, Fermina never admitted her lapse, and they only returned to a semblance of peace after Juvenal finally decided to confess that the soap had been there all along and that it was he who had never wanted to admit his error—even though they both knew this wasn’t the truth.

Honesty and forgiveness are essential to a successful partnership. Of course we try to avoid hurting each other, but we will still do so because we are sinful people. So these “fault” lines in our relationship must be continually sealed in forgiveness. Why? Because without forgiveness our foundational connection would crack under the unbearable weight of blame and pain.

What do you need to ask or offer forgiveness for today? Make it one of your top priorities.

He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.

—Martin Luther King Jr.