I know two people, each with a parent who made a choice that severed the parent-child relationship. In one case, a father disappeared from his son’s life for a decade. In the other, a mother chose to stay with the man who was sexually abusing her daughter. All four of these people are now professing Christians, and both parents have asked for forgiveness. So these two relationships should be fine now, right?

Christians are commanded to honor our parents, after all, and further, to forgive those who trespass against us. Something I’ve learned about sin, however, having committed more than my share of it, is that it scars those around us, sometimes even cripples them. If I run over you with my car, it doesn’t matter how repentant I am — you’ll still be in that wheelchair. Likewise, if I abdicate my responsibility as a parent, though I may grieve over it in later years, my repentance doesn’t produce the trust and communion that parents and children are supposed to have. Understandably, neither of these parents is close to his child.

But there are significant differences, and as I observe these relationships unfold, I am learning something about repentance and healing. In one case, the father has come to his son more than once, and offered his sorrow for not being there. He has been in his son’s life, and in the lives of his grandchildren, as much as his son will allow. His son, not the most openly emotional person, has slowly begun to open his heart to his father. They have a future, these two — I am pretty certain of this.

In the other relationship, the mother has grown insistent that she be honored by her daughter. She doesn’t like that her daughter treats her like any other friendly acquaintance. She seems to want deference when she expresses an opinion, and to have her daughter call more often, and visit more often, and choose her over other relatives when she does come to town. This mother seems to think she is owed something, and that her daughter is not providing it.

When she apologized to her daughter, it was not specific, as in the case of the father with his son. I think a specific apology means a lot, don’t you? It shows evidence that the sin, and its consequences, have really been considered. It’s easier to believe someone’s repentance, I think, when her apology is specific.

This daughter struggles, because most of her Christian friends don’t seem to understand. You’re supposed to honor your mother, they tell her. You’re supposed to forgive.

I think many of us confuse forgiving with forgetting. My friend can’t forget the choice her mother made. And her mother hasn’t done anything to make her believe that, if a time machine brought them back to that same place, she wouldn’t make the same terrible choice again. So whereas the father and his son show hope of growing closer, the mother and daughter seem to be drifting apart.

When we damage a relationship, we have to take steps to help repair the damage, if we want the relationship to be what it was, or what it was supposed to have been. “I’m sorry” is an important step, but it’s only the first step. It’s funny and sad that when celebrities get caught in a sin, they apologize and then go into some kind of rehabilitation, as if they are the ones in need of repair, rather than the families they have wounded.

All of this has made me think about the ways in which I have hurt people, and where I have succeeded or failed in helping repair the damage. It’s certainly hard to say I’m sorry. It’s even harder to live like it. I wish more of us, myself included, could live I’m sorry, not just say it.

It’s okay to fall into temptation and then repent. It’s a fine thing, I suppose, to “lose it” with your kids and then come back and ask forgiveness. It’s nice that you’re always honest with me from the pulpit and assure me that you fall repeatedly like me; and you’re so transparent, confessing to me that you also constantly forget to trust in Christ and to rejoice. But when that’s all you ever tell me I am not so greatly empowered.

I want to hear you say sometime that you do trust in God day by day, that you have been learning to be strong in him in moments of temptation. And I want to hear the stories pour out — how you didn’t lose it with your kids but managed to hold firm in faith and love because you were conscious of God (1 Peter 2:19), and how you called on his power when you saw the test coming (Psalm 50:15). I want to know how this walk of faith is changing you, and that you no longer stumble around in defeat but are living a new life.

Repentance and confession, yes. These are the graces that lubricate the fellowship of saints. But are these not given that we might also go beyond and see some better victories, lest we start to think that stumble-and-confess is all the height that we can climb? Did the Word not say that we would “reign in life”? (Romans 5:17)

I took a tour of America’s Keswick, a Bible-based addictions recovery ministry in Whiting, New Jersey, near the shore. Dina, the staff writer, told me about Bill P., who showed up at Keswick with the double problem of drug addiction and homosexuality — except he didn’t see the homosexuality as a problem.

Counselor Jim F. wasn’t sure how to handle it. Should he tell Bill in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome to the four-month program unless he was seeking to be free of both? He could have gone that route and been within his rights. But Jim decided to welcome Bill and handed him a Bible and suggested the newcomer read for himself what the Bible says God requires.

Bill read, and came to repudiate the gay lifestyle on his own. He later said that the highhanded approach would have made him pack up and leave the first night.

Today Bill is free of addiction to drugs and homosexuality and is part of the family of instructors at America’ s Keswick. There are several different ways you can handle any given counseling situation, but just as I’m learning on my Jetta that only experience teaches smooth gear shifting, only experience walking with the Holy Spirit gives discernment as to which tactic is best (Hebrews 5:14).