SAYING, 'YES, YOU'RE RIGHT'

Jesus, help me to admit when I'm wrong and an adult is right, and move on. Amen!

After Jesus died, the Apostles stayed in a room to talk about it. They locked the door, but, suddenly, Jesus came in anyway! "Peace be with you," He said, and gave them the power to forgive sins. One Apostle, Thomas, wasn't there and didn't believe the others saw Jesus. Then Jesus came back when Thomas was there. "Peace be with you -- and, Thomas, believe in me," He said. So Thomas did!

The hardest words for a kid to say can be, "Yes, you're right." Kids get corrected by adults so often they might feel like they don't do much right. Admitting when you know you've done something wrong can seem like you're just asking to be corrected more.

Jesus would probably hope that today's adults use His example from this week's Gospel (John 20:19-31). When Jesus had to correct Thomas, He did it gently -- and that made it easier for Thomas to say, "Yes, you're right. I made a mistake."

Some adults make it easy for you to admit when you mess up. You know that, if you tell them you understand what you did wrong, you won't get yelled at even more. They can see that you're embarrassed, so they just help you move on and act differently.

Jesus handled things that way. When Thomas wouldn't believe Jesus had come back to life at Easter, Jesus first showed that Thomas was obviously mistaken, because here Jesus was!

But Jesus didn't keep on scolding Thomas. As soon as Thomas admitted he'd made a mistake, Jesus moved on to giving some directions: "Believe in me." Jesus wasn't yelling at Thomas any more for messing up; He was telling Thomas how to do things differently.

With adults who act like that, it's easy to admit, "Yes, you're right!"

(03/27/08)