Grace Like Ice Cream

Middle school is rough. I’m sure that is something every generation can agree upon. My oldest is in 7th grade this year. I think it is even more difficult watching her go through it than going through it myself. Who was it that had the great idea for kids to leave the safety net of elementary school at the same time that hormones, self-discovery, and all levels of awkwardness are emerging?

The first semester of 7th grade was the hardest time my daughter has ever had at school. Part of her story is that she is dyslexic. School will always contain a certain level of difficulty for her. It’s the other part of her story we weren’t quite prepared for as parents.

Having never been a mom of a teenager, I wasn’t ready for the transformation from a sweet little child into an opinionated teen. As the difficulty level of school increased, so did the level of obstinacy from my daughter. The change was so sudden that I never saw it coming or had time to prepare.

My sweet little girl was becoming a master manipulator. It used to be that when someone was caught lying in the house, hers was the only testimony I could trust. As I grilled the rest of her siblings, she would be excused because I trusted her word. That was no longer the case.

Lying had become an artful skill for her. She was able to use emotion and completely have me fooled. It didn’t seem to matter how much the teachers reached out to her or the discipline we put in place. Nothing was getting through to her. At her lowest point, she looked at me and said she was “hopeless.”

Hopeless.

I hate that word. Jesus gave His very life so that word would no longer exist. If my daughter was feeling hopeless, then I was failing as a parent. I was failing as a disciple of Jesus. Something had to change, but what?

A semester’s worth of arguments, punishments, and deception had eroded our relationship. She and I have spent countless hours over her lifetime doing homework, and those hours have translated into a very special bond. I was blown away at how such a solid relationship could crumble so quickly. If I’m honest, I was no longer enjoying spending time with her. I had very little trust left in her, and she was making herself very difficult to love.

Inspiration struck like lightning. It was time for grace in the form of ice cream.

I told my husband that after I took her to her violin practice, I was going to take her out for ice cream. Not just any ice cream, but the fancy pants kind of ice cream. My daughter’s behavior hadn’t changed. She was still behaving ugly and was pretty miserable to be around. I could easily think of ten people that I would rather have taken out for ice cream that night, but my daughter needed grace.

After her practice, she noticed we weren’t driving home the normal route. I didn’t tell her where we going. I simply pulled up in front of the ice cream parlor. She looked over at me with a confused look on her face. I told her that she didn’t deserve ice cream, but I wanted her to understand grace.

The simplest definition of grace is getting something that you don’t deserve. It is unmerited favor. I was given grace when Jesus died for my sins even though I didn’t deserve it. Romans 5:7-8 says, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

If Christ died for me even though I was a sinner, surely I could buy some ice cream for an undeserving teenager. As I began to explain what this unmerited ice cream represented, my daughter began to cry. She knew she didn’t deserve it, but she was unable to wipe the slate clean on her own. I needed to be the bigger person.

Over the next half hour, we sat and savored every last bite of that delicious grace. We laughed, told stories, and for the first time in a really long time we simply enjoyed being together. Ice cream didn’t fix everything, but for that moment it was enough.