“Indeed, he gives us second chances, third, fourth, fifth chances, –oh, far too many to count.” – Liz Curtis Higgs, from Embrace Grace
by Tina Ann Forkner
I was sitting at my desk when I had a funny feeling I’d messed up. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure I’d made a mistake. I called the school secretary and sure enough the after school party had started at 3:30, not 4:30 like I’d thought.
With a quick word to my boss, I rushed to after school daycare, whisked my daughter away, and headed back to her school. I wanted my little girl to receive her special award for a writing contest she’d placed in, but by the time we arrived back at the school, the awards had already been handed out and the party was over.
As the teacher handed her the award without pomp and circumstance, I stood by wondering if they had one waiting for me too. It would have been called the Worst Mom of the Week award. After leftover cookies and punch without her friends, I let her take another cookie and I drove away from the party feeling teary as I apologized over and over to my daughter for messing up.
“It’s okay, Mommy.” I glanced in the rearview mirror to see her munching on her cookie and gazing out the window at a puppy we had just passed by. Her small features were calm, with a little smile dancing at the corners of her crumb speckled mouth.
“I’m still proud of you honey,” I said, not believing she was really okay. In the mirror she nodded her head before twisting around to catch one more glance of that puppy.
“I know, Mommy, but can we have ice cream when we get home?” Her smiling face was hopeful, not sad. She had already dismissed my mistake.
Laughter bubbled up as I mused over how quickly my child’s attention had changed. In fact, as I reflected on the whole event, I realized she’d been full of smiles the whole time and more focused on her cookie than she had been about missing the party.
I was the one upset. My daughter had not shed one tear and she didn’t notice the tears of regret still pooling in my eyes. All she cared about was having Mommy with her and about what we would do together next. The opportunist that she was, she had only requested ice cream.
Desperate circumstances call for desperate measures, right? So I did what any busy mom would do in my situation and I pulled out all the stops. Who cares she’d had two cookies already or that it was close to dinner time? I didn’t wait until we got home. The situation called for the real thing, so I took her to Dairy Queen.
I let her get chocolate syrup and two kinds of sprinkles, the chocolaty kind and the rainbow kind, and we went inside instead of speeding through the drive through. I had some, as well, because she insisted that I needed ice cream. Of course, she had already given me what I needed when she showered me with a sprinkling of grace.
Yes, the extra sprinkles were out of guilt, but they covered my mistakes just fine. As I brushed them from the corners of her cute little mouth, her smile told me she knew she was the center of our little party.
What she did not know was that I would have let her get seconds with triple sprinkles to keep that smile on her face, but she didn’t even ask.
“…for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” -Lamentations 3:22-23, The Holy Bible, NIV
Sometimes it takes a child to show us the simple meaning of grace. Is there a time when you were reminded of God’s grace in an unexpected way?
