The four most important words a husband and wife will ever speak to one another are these:
– “Will you forgive me?” Those other four words – “I am really sorry. – are important, too. But asking for forgiveness requires a response – a very direct yes or no answer. The truth is that sometimes that answer might be “no.”
Many years ago my wife, Judy, and I had been fighting about something. If you are like us, when we fight, we actually don’t do a lot of talking. You know, that quiet, uncomfortable silence that sort of yells at the world around you something is wrong!
That seemed to go on for a day or two, when Judy stopped me in our kitchen and asked the question – “Will you forgive me?” At the time, I said, “Right now, I don’t know if I can do that.”
Well, with a little fire in her eyes, she grabbed my shirt collar with two hands, pushed me back down into a kitchen chair, sat on my lap, and then eyeball-to-eyeball, said, “You have to forgive me. God says so!”
We both started to laugh and it was then that we began the healing. It was the first step in the two of us living out our Sacrament of Marriagein our marriage, are more important than anything that might come between us.
“Will you forgive me?” It takes some courage to ask the question. But it is a question every married couple has to ask. It truly opens the door to loving each other as God calls us to love one another.