Stuff happens. Accidents, conflicting demands, and careless ignorance combine to bring us spilled milk, missed birthdays, and damaged relationships. The common excuse is that whatever happened was an accident and concludes with “it wasn’t his or her fault”. Given that I am the one who is pleading my case frequently, I find it easy to understand, accept, and hope that the excuse that “it isn’t my fault” applies. I’m not alone. Everywhere I look people are repeating the same repetitive line.
The clich? that often comes with accidents in relationships is that the “devil made me do it”. Other excuses include “I didn’t know what I was doing” or “it just seemed like the right decision at the time”. Even John opens the door for an excuse then he talks about a particularly devastating event. “With one flick of its tail it [the Dragon] knocked a third of the Stars from the sky and dumped them on earth.” (Revelation 12.3)
Brokenness may have come because a person didn’t know what they were doing or thought it was the right thing or was even was under the influence of another. Regardless of the source of ones actions, the motivation behind choices at hand, or even the blissful absence of knowledge that anything negative could possibly come, when one makes a decision, takes a course of action, or chooses a path, one is accountable. It is a singular mode of accountability that one cannot escape, regardless of outside involvement.
Accidents do happen. Relationships are hurt and even broken. Accountability transcends each one. The mystery is that as we are also in relationship with a God that knows the details and deals with the results of our accountability through mercy, forgiveness, and loved bathed in the Cross. The result is that we can be both fully accountable and fully forgiven.
God doesn’t stop here because relationships still need healing. The relationship with the Divine includes acts of recreation, restoration, and mending of hearts. Even as we are the source of the accidents we are also part the healing process.
