Learning Mercy Through Mistakes

It's hard when your kids mess up. Things that seem extremely simple to me are difficult for my girls - like bringing dishes and laundry baskets down from their rooms, throwing trash in the trash can, putting their dishes in the dishwasher, or flushing the toilet. These daily annoyances add up and I get so exasperated. The reoccurrence and lack of care, or trying, makes me so angry! Yet, I try to be patient and choose my battles.

So why am I venting about these small annoyances? Well, sometimes they aren't small mess-ups. Sometimes they are big. The girls have been driving for a little over 3 months now. They were doing well, but in the past 7 days both Evie and Olivia have hit the side of the garage with their cars. Luckily Evie did it first and didn't damage her car... just the garage a little. She came running in the house freaked out. I very calmly hugged her and said, "We all do it honey. We all make mistakes. I've hit things before too. It's a good lesson to remind us to slow down." I was showing Evie grace.

A few days later Olivia too quickly backed out of the garage with a car full of excited friends heading to the mall. She swiped the side of her car and took off her side mirror. Now the other side of the garage was damaged! Brad had just fixed Evie's side of the garage door. (We are going to become pros at this.) Immediately I was worried. What would Brad say? He is going to be so mad. This time there is car damage. She was clearly driving too fast and not being careful. Yet, Brad simply said, "Well the good news is I now know where to get the weather stripping and how to replace it." Brad was showing Olivia grace.

It wasn't always easy for us to do this. We are learning. We are learning to be more patient, to realize our kids are going to mess up, and to put things in perspective. I'm so glad we are constantly growing and learning as parents. It is because God shows us grace that we can extend that grace to our kids. It is because God forgives us when we repeatedly make the same mistakes, bad choices, selfish decisions - that we can extend the same forgiveness to our girls. When we realize we are not perfect, it becomes easier to understand that our kids are not going to be perfect either... far from it! They've had a few less years than us to learn from experience ;)

So I hope my girls learned a valuable lesson about extending patience, mercy, and forgiveness. I hope they recognize when they are called to do the same. I pray that, as parents, we are good models of God's love... well, as good as we are humanly able.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." - 2 Corinthians 12:9