Sunday Morning Grace

It's Sunday morning.  We're getting ready for church, like we do every week, and we're running late, like we do every week.  I'm trying to herd children to the car, making sure everyone has shoes, there are clean diapers for the baby, and I brushed my own teeth.

Then it starts.

The five year old, the one whose middle name means "grace", begins to scream.  She doesn't like the shoes she's wearing.  She didn't want her hair that way.  She's NOT going to buckle her seatbelt.  She's "NOT EVEN GOING TO SIT DOWN!!!"

I feel it building inside, the bully that wants to say, "Who do you think you are?  You're 5 years old!  You picked those shoes!  And if I really wanted to make you sit down in that carseat and buckle your seatbelt, I could."

But there is the moment, the deep breath in and out, the inhale and exhale, the name that isn't spoken...the grace.  And I don't scream wild or jerk sharp against skinny child arms.  I turn, take another breath, and say, "It's time for us to go.  I know that you're feeling really angry and frustrated right now.  We can't change the choices you already made, but we're going, all together, and you have a choice now.  I'll only wait a little bit for you to decide what you'll choose to do next."  Then I turn back to look through the windshield.

The screaming stops, but there are still tears.  A little girl in the "backity-back" beside a big brother sits down and buckles her seatbelt.  She wipes tears and cleans salt-streaked glasses as her Daddy gets into the driver's seat.  We go, all together, to church.

The picture doesn't look this way every week, but today, there is Sunday morning grace.  And somehow there's this holy irony, this child that sometimes reminds me so much of my small-child-self, that I gave this name that means "grace", this one that shows me grace immeasurable and allows me to reciprocate the grace that I've recieved.  This is amazing grace.