Grace and the Ice Cream Cone

I suppose opportunities come along all the time to teach our children about God's amazing gift of GRACE. Only once in awhile do we actually recognize them.

Let me back up to supper time last evening. I had conjured up some sort of concoction involving pork, rice, tomatoes, and the kicker......ZUCCHINI. Although Erin tolerates a variety of vegetables, zucchini is definitely not on the list. Now, we have a rule around our house, and Matt and I are known to be pretty strict about it--if you don't finish your supper, you don't eat again until breakfast the next day. We try to avoid this as much as we can, as it usually means for an evening of "I'm Huuuuuungry". So, we encouraged her to eat. We pleaded with her to eat. We enthusiastically ate it ourselves and went back for seconds. Both Isaac and Gabe managed to finish theirs. But Erin picked around at hers, working hard, gagging, drinking lots of water to get most of it down. In the end, in the bottom of her bowl sat that little pile of rejected zucchini.

Later, I mentioned going to get some ice cream. I must have said it out loud before it occurred to me that Erin wouldn't be allowed any. But once the words are out, you can't take them back. The boys had already heard me, so there was no turning back. That's when I looked over at Erin and saw the disappointment all over her. She knew the rules.

Normally, I'd consider myself a tough-love, no-nonsense kind of mom. For some reason, last night was different. Maybe it was the way she was genuinely trying to hold back the tears, but failing. A parent can usually tell when a child is crying in order to be manipulative. This was clearly NOT one of those times. She was just plain heartbroken. Because when you're 5, missing out on ice cream can truly seem like the end of the world. I saw her pain, I understood, and I hurt with her. All of the sudden I found myself looking for excuses NOT to go.

Eventually the boys won out and we found ourselves on our way to Arcanum. The place we normally go was closed, so we sucked it up (literally, at $4 a gallon) and continued on to Greenville. The muffled sobs coming from the backseat the entire time made the trip seem a lot longer. Matt and I discussed, quietly, (in our special secret code we have to use with children present), how we were going to handle this. Now, don't get me wrong here. We weren't considering "giving in" to a whining child. She wasn't whining. She was just unable to hold back her very real emotions--emotions that spill out when you wish you'd done things differently, you can't change it no matter how much you want to now, and its time to accept the consequences. My heart was moved with compassion. One, because I've been there. Two, because I simply love her and wanted to take away her pain.

Erin didn't deserve ice cream. She didn't eat her supper, after all. That's the RULE. There have been plenty of times before when we've stuck to our guns and carried out the punishment as planned, with a child in the backseat crying for ice cream. But this time God nudged me. He let me know that this was a good time to teach my daughter about GRACE. I shared with Matt what I was feeling and he understood. As he got out of the van and went to the window to place our order, I gave Erin a quick-course on grace: We sin. We deserve death. Jesus took our punishment for us. God gives us LIFE instead of what we deserve. GRACE. (All of this, of course, in 5-yr-old style.)

Matt got back in the van and handed Erin an ice cream cone. Undeserved, thus truly appreciated. The smile and simple "Thank you!" she gave her daddy was priceless. She didn't even complain about being given plain vanilla, when everyone else got their choice of flavor. (Whew! I was praying she wouldn't whine and make us regret our decision.) She seemed to get the point and ate her ice cream happily and thankfully.

This is storybook parenting here. It doesn't go down like this very often--where you try to teach your child something and they actually cooperate with a right attitude. Though I don't know if she consciously put two and two together--that our little spiritual talk had something to do with her ending up with an ice cream cone. I guess its God's job to "put it together" inside her spirit, and I trust He'll give her the understanding in time.

Lastly, I must say that, while I think it is so important to show our kids grace at times, we also must be careful not to overuse this approach. MOST of the time, we should stick to the rules and let our children experience natural consequences of their actions. In instances involving outright disobedience or disrespect, I believe its always appropriate to discipline carefully. This was less crucial of an issue--merely childish dislike of a certain food, and we felt it was an appropriate time to demonstrate grace. God, give us the wisdom to know the difference in these times.