I recently read a column by Burt Prelutsky in which he expresses his frustration with the concept of the "death bed confession." In his words,

I must confess I found the notion that if, on their deathbeds, Charles Manson and Osama bin Laden accepted Jesus into their hearts, they would get to heaven, but my grandparents wouldn't, rather unsavory.

I thought about this, and I thought of a scenario that might put this idea into a better perspective.

Imagine you are the parent of a child, a son. You love him with all your heart, but as he grows, he is nothing but trouble. As a child, he is violent with other kids and destructive with property. Later, he gets into drugs, sex, and worse. When he is fifteen years old, he runs away from home, and you lose touch with him completely. You hate the choices he makes, but you still love him, and what he has done with his life breaks your heart every day. Then one day, you receive a call from him. He is in the hospital, sick with some deadly disease, and he wants to see you. You head straight to the hospital where, with his dying breath, he tells what you have been waiting all these years to hear: that he has been wrong all his life, that he is more sorry than he can express for all the pain he has caused you, and that more than anything, he wants you to forgive him. What do you do?

If you said, "Forgive him," then you have answered the same way that God does. Have you asked Him to forgive you?