The Power of One Story | S2E6

What if the mistake you carry in your heart has already been forgiven? In this powerful moment from The Power of One Story on the Tools for Success Podcast, Cathy Tooley shares a story about grace, mercy, and the freedom that comes when we stop holding ourselves hostage to the past. The message is simple but life changing. You may not be perfect, but you are still worthy of forgiveness, growth, and a new chapter.

✨ Watch the full episode and be reminded that your story is bigger than your mistakes.

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//About

Cathy Tooley is the Founder & CEO of Tools for Success and a seasoned educator with over 40 years in K–12 classrooms and school leadership. From high school teacher to principal, Cathy has dedicated her life to supporting educators. In 2014, she launched Tools for Success to provide real, in-person instructional coaching—not just “PD in a box.” She’s the author of The Education System Is Broken, a national speaker, and a fierce advocate for teachers. Through this podcast, she’s spotlighting the ripple effect of great teaching.
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Transcript

The Unforgivable Story Loop

Cathy Tooley 0:00

What's the story that just keeps running through your head that it's unforgivable? That if anyone knew it, which your father already does, you could never be forgiven. And what would it look like if you just let him have it? Announce it, tell him what you've done, and ask for his forgiveness. I am a good mother. I'm not a perfect mother. I'm a good wife. Not a perfect wife. I'm a good daughter. Definitely not a perfect daughter. I'm a good friend. Never have I been a perfect friend. I was a good teacher, but never did I get perfect. And so what I wonder is, how far gone do we think we are? That if we got to the page in front of our father, it would be blank. It would be blank.

Mercy And Micah 6:8

Cathy Tooley 1:10

Hi everybody, welcome back to our episode here in the Kathy Thule and the Tools for Success podcast. We've been doing a series called The Power of One. And I felt really compelled to do this one. And it's called The Power of One Story. So at our church, where my husband and I and a family attend, we were studying Micah, specifically Micah 6 through 8, that says, He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? Boy, very rarely do we hear that spelled, do we? And it has, but two, to do justice, to have mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. So mercy really hit me when we were talking this particular Sunday. And as often when I sit in church on Sunday and listen to the sermons, you know, you know how that is. It's no different when I listen to my K-Love or I listen to people speak. Sometimes people say things and you go, ooh, that the Lord meant that statement, that song, that comment, that conversation, that whatever, just for me. And I really started thinking about mercy. And when I think about mercy, what I think about is grace and kindness. And it really drove me to think about where do I show grace or kindness in my own life? I want people to show it to me, but do I show it to other people? Am I always as forgiving in offering grace to other people's mistakes as I expect our Heavenly Father to give to me? Do I always act with fairness and honesty and integrity as I expect the Lord to treat me?

Parenting Adult Children With Grace

Cathy Tooley 3:35

And it really, really hit me with my family. You know, one of the things I think I have older children now, they're all grown. I'm raising adult children, which is a very, very different world than raising younger children. Those of you that are home with that one-year-old and two-year-old, um, you'll be there someday. Save this podcast. Raising adult children has been, without question, the most difficult work my husband and I have ever done. Because we're parenting now from afar, and we're parenting adults. And I'm going to be honest that it has not always been easy. It has been bumpy and painful and ugly, and it's mercy. And so I heard a story that changed my way of thinking. And so I'd like

January 1, 1968 And Shame

Cathy Tooley 4:35

to share that story with you. So there was a man who was born and was an upright man, raised in faith, knew who Jesus Christ was, and loved the Lord. And as every man and every woman, at some point, he made a mistake that he's really not proud of. And for this, this happened on January 1st, 1968. He remembers the date, the moment, the second, the action, the behavior, the repercussions, and the fallout that came from January 1st, 1968. He was a young man, but he never forgot it. How many of us have a January 1st, 1968, right? That you're recalling right now. And he thought and he knew there is no way that I can be forgiven for that. There's just certain things that the Lord cannot forgive. And what I did on January 1st, 1968, simply isn't forgivable. But as life happens, he got married, met a woman, fell in love, and she fell in love with him. But in the back of his mind, he often thought, I wonder if you would love me if you knew about January 1st, 1968. What I did then. But she did. And he never told her. And life went on, and they had children. And he was a good and faithful father who raised his children, loving the Lord, going to church, worshiping the Lord, while always in the back of his mind, he thought, would they think I'm a good father if they knew about January 1st, 1968? I knew about it. I know he even knows about it. But life went on. He raised his children. His children grew to successful, fruitful adults who married themselves and had grandchildren, and he was an amazing grandfather, the kind that doted on him and loved on them and spoiled them rotten. And as they sat on grandpa's lap, he would love on them and they would tell him how great he was. And he often thought so many times, gosh, I wish January 1st, 1968 never happened. And I wished I could let it go. But what they know is a lie. They don't know the real me. They don't know what I did on January 1st, 1968. They only know the grandpa that they want to see, the father that they want to see, the husband that they want to see, but they don't know the dark side of me that was January 1st, 1968. And then it was time for him to go home and wait for his father to say, My good and faithful servant, welcome home. And as he met Jesus on the other side, Jesus had a book that was called The Story of Your Life. And Jesus began to thumb through the book and the pages, reading him excerpts from the book, from when he was born, and when he was one and when he was five. And he kept thinking, oh my God, but we're going to get to January 1st, 1968. Oh. And then we got to 1960, and we got to 1961, and we got to 1962, and we thought, oh, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. I've tried to be a good man. I've tried to be a good husband and a father and a grandfather and raised my children. Just please skip to 1965, 1966, 1967. And then he paused, and Jesus looked down, and the man said, looked down and thought, all of the stories that you've recounted in my life before that, and all of the stories that you could recount after won't matter. Because of January 1st, 1968. And Jesus paused. And he touched his temple and he made a face at him. And the man went over to push the book of his life down so that he could read the words that were written about him, because he knew what happened on January 1st, 1968. And the page was blank. There was nothing on it. And the man said, Jesus, sweet, you know what I did. You know what I did on January 1st, 1968. Why is the page blank? All the other pages of my life weren't blank. All the other pages after aren't blank. But why? Why is that blank? And he said, My son, you asked me on that day to forgive you, and I did. I stretched my hands out for you and died so that you never had to pay for that.

The Blank Page Of Forgiveness

Cathy Tooley 9:46

And ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know that as I heard that story, I felt like the Lord punched me right upside my head. Because prior to that story, as I said, I'm raising adult children and it's hard. I had these stories of all the things that I wasn't as a mother, the things I could have done, should have done, should have said, didn't say. Oh, oh, the things that I said that I wished I could take back in anger or in judgment or in self-righteousness or in trying to teach them a lesson or to get them to pay attention or for once in their life to just listen to me. Words that I know wrote on the slate of their souls. And I remembered that I've already asked God for forgiveness for those things. And that despite what my children or anyone else may hold over me, my book won't show those pages. Now the Lord calls us to not to continue to sin, but to go forth and sin no more. What I have learned about being an adult parent, to adult children, is that some of the ways that I parented my children when they were young, I can't parent them that way now. I have to parent them differently. But what I learned is all I ever have to do is to ask forgiveness. Do you remember the story in John 11 where Jesus tells the woman who'd been caught in adultery? If you don't read the story, please, John 8, 11. And it says, Neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on, sin no more.

Go And Sin No More

Cathy Tooley 11:50

You know that that statement, that verse is so powerful because it's a declaration of the Lord saying, I don't hold you to your sins. I don't hold you to what you've done. I just want you to go do better. Isn't that true of what we how we teach our children when they when they do something wrong? I can remember one time my daughter thought it would be hysterical to take scissors and they they cut our couch and they cut our bangs, each other's bangs. Remember, everyone's got that child picture where somebody got a hold of bangs, curtains, carpet. I didn't stop me from loving my children. It may be cautious where I put scissors, but it didn't make me stop loving my children because I can't stop loving them. It's impossible. And no differently than our Heavenly Father can stop us, can stop loving us. So I really felt compelled to make this podcast, this one. Because you know what I wonder? What do you where is your January 1st, 1968? What's the story that just keeps running through your head that is unforgivable, that if anyone knew it, which your father already does, you could never be forgiven. And what would it look like if you just let him have it? Announce it, tell him what you've done, and ask for his forgiveness. I am a good mother. I'm not a perfect mother. I'm a good wife. Not a perfect wife. I'm a good daughter. Definitely not a perfect daughter. I'm a good friend. Never have I been a perfect friend. I was a good teacher. But never did I get perfect. And so what I wonder is how far gone do we think we are? That if we got to the page in front of our father, it would be blank. It would be blank. So I ask you today to take your January 1st, 1968 to our Father and move on to be the incredible person you were meant to be. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you on the next episode.