Five times a year, I share my writing in Cultivating, a lovely publication offered by Cultivating Oaks Press. Each edition is an absolute feast for the soul. Below are the opening few paragraphs of first essay for my new column, “Cultivating Character in Young Oaklings” for the Autmn 2026 edition about Renewing Forgiveness. You can read the full version of my article exclusively in the online edition. While you’re there, I hope you will enjoy the thoughtful, deep work of my fellow Cultivators. They are kind, wise, and stay close to Jesus’s side, and they have beautiful words to offer. Enjoy!
Cultivating Character in Young Oaklings is a column that celebrates the good gift and the sacred charge to the people of God to participate with Him in nurturing the youngest among us—our oaklings—toward transformation into the image of Jesus Christ. As those who belong to the One who called children to Himself and proclaimed that “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Luke 18.6 NIV), we will explore what it means to invite children into the Story of the restoration of all things, and how they might grow in Christ-like virtue as they take their God-given place in that Story.
I have had to ask my children for forgiveness more times than I can remember and certainly more times than I imagined would be necessary when I became a parent. In those early days I was so full of hope that my overwhelming love for my children would shield them from my faults, shortcomings, and places in my own heart and mind that are still in need of God’s healing.
One moment of contrition in particular stands out crystal clear in my mind. I had just over-reacted to something our oldest son—who was perhaps seven or eight years old at the time—had done or said. My split-second reaction, unthinking, unmeasured in tone and force, caused his face and frame to wither before my eyes before he skulked away.
My feelings of self-justification ebbed away with my adrenaline, and I leaned my elbows against the kitchen counter, head in my hands, tears escaping through my tightly closed eyelids.
“Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner,” I whispered. Again.
I padded up the creaky stairs and found my son sitting on his bed, clutching his favorite stuffy, Clifford the Big Red Dog, legs dangling over the side. I knelt down in front of his bed, looked into his eyes, and apologized for dishonoring him—and the God who made him in His image—with my words and tone. I confessed my need for Jesus to make me new. I asked him, “Sweetie, will you forgive me?”
My son opened his spindly, little-boy arms wide and with a tender smile said, “Always.”
Always.
Even all these years later, I’m still in awe—utterly pierced to the heart—by my son’s response. His offering of always to my request for forgiveness carries something more than even the most heartfelt yes. In my son’s absolution was not just a one-time choice to overlook that particular offense. His always held the assurance of love, a cultivated posture of the heart, and a determination of the will to forgive, this time and the next and the next.