Scissors and Grace

Ok, so I may never have explicitly told my children not to cut their hair with scissors.

I thought it was understood.

Let this be a lesson to you.

As we were getting ready to run errands this morning, I heard Huston say something about Arden having scissors, but I just hollered at them to put the scissors away and come to the car. When we got to our first stop, I noticed Arden's hair was kind of poking up all crazy from her rubber band (I had pulled part of it back and left the rest down). I went to fix it, and a big chunk of hair came out in my hand. (Thank the Lord, it was not as serious as I first thought. You can't tell at all that any hair is missing and it could have been so much worse.)

I started freaking out and telling Arden, "No, No! We don't cut our hair with scissors!" I gave her quite the lecture and she kept saying "Ok" and looking chastised. Huston helpfully added, "We can just glue it back."

As we're walking into the store, Arden, as though replaying what happened, says, "Huston just cut my hair with scissors."

Huston's eyes shoot up to me with a startled look and he tries denying it, but I can tell from his face that he was indeed the culprit. I should have known with his obsession last weekend for pretending to give us haircuts. He finally admitted it after I reminded him of the seriousness of lying.

I couldn't believe he had just stood there and let Arden take all the blame.

Throughout the course of the morning, Huston had several other incidents that left me feeling frustrated, including pushing a little boy down the slide on the playground and making him cry, and not obeying me when I asked him to stand by me. I was reminding him of the importance of obedience and kindness in all of these areas as I was buckling him into his car seat after playing at the church playground.

As we drove off, he said in a trembling voice, "Mommy, I'm sorry for all the bad things I did today."

Of course my heart softened, and I felt the Lord nudge me to give him grace. I told him that of course I forgave him and that we all do bad things, even Mommy and Daddy, and that the Bible calls that Sin. But the good news of the Bible is that Jesus died on the cross for all the bad things we do, to forgive us of our sin.

I don't know that he understood everything, but I pray that one day soon he will.

And I pray that God will help me use times like these not just to discipline my children, but to point them to the cross and to give them grace, as He gave us.