Everyone who has been married knows this feeling: you’re in the midst of a disagreement with your spouse. You’ve really dug in your heels. You’re ready to die on this hill. And you have the awful, heartbreaking realization that you are wrong. Whatever it is you’re arguing about, you’re wrong. You.

So where do you go from here? The only way forward is to own it. Fess up. Grab a fork and dig into that humble pie. It makes me cringe just to write about it, because it’s the worst feeling.

I use the example of marriage because it’s the one I’m most familiar with — my closest relationship, the one that teaches me the most about who I am and who God asks me to be. But this is a universal experience, and everyone — single or married, child or adult, lay or ordained — knows how badly it feels to realize that you’re wrong. You’re human. You messed up.

It is hard to recognize that the Christian life is one of ongoing repentance. It is painful to acknowledge the ways in which we are falling short, even as we strive to follow in Christ’s example.

It can, in the words of today’s reading, “cut to the heart.”

But that feeling of despair is what propels forward motion. We have to allow ourselves to feel bad, that’s the fertile ground of penitence. We are meant to have not just life, but life “more abundantly.” Stasis isn’t the goal. Baptism isn’t the finish line.

Examining our conscience is hard. It cuts to the heart. It cuts to the truth.

“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”

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