He Already Paid for That

We were walking out the door for Ava's end of the year program when a look of horror spread across her face.

"Mom! I have to find my recorder! If I can't find it, you'll have to pay for it!"

I hadn't seen her recorder in over a month. Perhaps I had assumed she had returned it to her music teacher. Most probably, I hadn't thought about it at all.

"Sweetie, check your backpack. If it's not in there, we'll just have to leave. We're going to be late if we don't leave now!"

It wasn't there.

In the car, Ava kept pressing: "You'll have to pay for that."

I'm a failure. I can't keep up with anything.

"You'll have to pay for that."

Too many moving parts. Too many.

"You'll have to pay for that."

I'm drowning.

"You'll have to pay for that."

I snapped.

"Stop saying that! This is not my fault! I didn't know that you hadn't turned it in!"

Not my finest parenting moment.

***

I believe in grace. I believe in showing my kids the glorious, deep, unconditional grace of Jesus.

But I'm not him, and doing that proved to be more complicated than I once thought.

When we first got past the diapers and spit-up stage of parenting, I thought giving grace to my kids would mean forgiving them when they messed up and constantly pointing them back to the cross. And it is that.

But I think that's the easy part, because it mostly happens in what I call the "intentional" moments of parenting, when I have taken time to slow down, breathe deep, and pray through what I say to my kids.

What's harder to control is what leaks out of me when I'm stressed, hurried, and feeling guilty myself. In these situations, I'm liable to succumb to using the motherly device we all know and love--the guilt trip.

Late for church? It's because you couldn't find your shoe. Dirty house? Little animals! Lost recorder? You should have kept up with it.

In reality, we were late for church before we had children, our house was never spick and span, and I probably lost my recorder as a kid too.

It's not that my kids bear no responsibility in these situations; they just don't bear all of it. And when I try to make them bear the full weight of it, it crushes them.

Simply put, I can't give grace when I'm not living in it myself. If I'm not, I'll always be blame-shifting. I'll be trying to earn acceptance and approval and throwing guilt on whoever is most vulnerable.

Author Rachel Jankovic has written that as mothers, we are to "take the grace that God has extended to [us], and feed [our] children with it. Apply what you believe about God’s mercy and kindness and long suffering towards us, and pour it out to them."

Scripture reminds us that it's his kindness that draws up to repentance. At first glance, this is counter-intuitive. But really, who will confess sin to an angry, vindictive father? It's when we are confident of his acceptance that we are set free to confess our sins and turn from them. We don't have to blame-shift.

We can own our weaknesses and sins because we have confidence in a Savior who took them upon himself. I can live in grace and show it to my kids because he already paid for that.

***

Epilogue: Lest you misunderstand and think me a "cheap grace" person: I did talk to Ava's music teacher and verify that I, indeed, did not need to pay for that. ;)