I got upset tonight.
My 10 year old, Tessa, and I were making a recipe together for some gummy candies.
The kit had been one of her birthday gifts.
She had not followed instructions.
It was already too late when I noticed that she had jumped ahead, and ruined the whole batch we were working on by not being careful,
and by just assuming the steps.
Before I knew it,
she had mixed an entire pouch of sour additive in when it was meant to be just a light dusting.
All of that work!
All of that wasted time!
I fussed at her over it until she cried.
After all,
“How hard is it to just read the directions?!”
I felt terrible when,
through my still running words and her tears
she finally burst,
“DOES ANYONE EVER GET MAD AT *YOU* FOR MISTAKES?!”
And as if I had been clubbed there,
I felt that question deep in my chest.
I stopped my lecturing then.
Because oh,
she was right.
And oh…I had been wrong.
There have been many times in my adult life when I’ve felt hurt by being judged harshly for my own simple, honest mistakes.
I’ve been wounded deeply by people I have loved who thought, wrongfully,
that they knew all of my motives.
Now I was passing down that same exact hurt.
Truly the worst inheritance.
The two seconds following her saying that to me, and my response to it seemed like an hour.
An hour where I felt like I saw that scene from somewhere up above.
My scowling face.
Her tear-filled eyes.
The way I leaned closer to her.
The way that she pulled away.
I knew that this was a moment where I could decide if this would be something I would regret forever,
or would impact us both for the good.
Because, don’t we all make mistakes?
Don’t we all, at times, jump ahead?
Haven’t we all put too much of our sour into the mix?
But the way to balance sour is always with sweet,
and that reminded me of something tonight:
To receive grace for our own mistakes,
we must also give some grace, too.
So I sighed, and I asked her forgiveness for not giving more room for mistakes.
This house we moved to may be really small,
but no dwelling is ever too small to welcome in grace.
It’s presence never pushes anyone to the side.
It’s presence can, instead, make a cottage
a mansion.
It’s so important to face one another with love facing out,
but to do it
we might have to first face ourselves.