Of Glass and Grace

When my oldest had just turned six, he began playing with two brothers (we'll call them Graham and Monte) who were five and four and lived just around the corner from us. At the time, there was only one other boy his age in the neighborhood. I was thrilled that Bryce was playing with these boys since the other boy had rammed Bryce's bike, the summer before, and caused him to go flying over the handlebars, landing in a heap on the ground, bleeding and not remembering where he was.

Bryce seemed to really like Graham and Monte. At one point, I noticed that almost every day he was wanting to head over to their house to give them one of his toys. When I said, "You know you don't have to give them your police badge, just because they like to play police," he replied, "But I really want to give it to them." Now, what mother is going to turn down sincere sharing like that, I ask? A few weeks later, I discovered what motivated his generosity.

I began working at my son's grade school as an individual aide and happened to be working in Graham's classroom. One day as we were lining up to go to gym, another student asked how I knew Graham so well. I explained that my son plays with Graham sometimes. Graham immediately offered up, "Well, not anymore."

I asked, "Why not anymore?"

He said, "Not since the glass."

I asked, "What glass? What happened?"

He explained that he and my son had broken some glass on the driveway and Graham's mother had forbidden my son from ever coming to their house again.

That afternoon, I grilled my son for an explanation of what had happened. He claimed it was Graham's idea to take the glass from the recycling bin and break it on the driveway. He said that the mother yelled at him and told him he was not allowed to play there again. This had apparently happened three or four weeks prior to my knowledge.

I informed Bryce that we were walking over right then and there and he was going to offer up an apology to Graham's mother. When Graham and his mother came to the door, I said Bryce had something to say to them. After his apology, I apologized and said that I had no idea that this had happened. I asked if she would let me know if anything like this happened again. She explained that when it happened she told my son to go home and tell his mother what he had done. She said it wouldn't happen again because he is not allowed to come to their house. At some point during this discussion, Graham even spoke up to confirm that he had been the instigator in this behavior.

The mother held firm to her resolution of never allowing my child on her property. She continued to glare at him every time she saw him. When my husband would take Bryce to Cub Scouts, he would come home and report that Graham's mother stayed for the entire activity and glared at my husband as well as my son.

So, as I cleaned up the gazillion glass shards from my own garage floor yesterday, I found myself thinking, "Boy, I can imagine how ticked off Graham's mother must have been to find the glass mess that they made." But, pretty soon after that, I returned to my normal thoughts on this incident. They were kids. Yes, they made a bad decision, but they were kids and kids make mistakes. Her own kid was part and parcel of the mistake. My child was not a frequent offender and his actions had not been malicious.

Plus, what kid goes home and tells on himself? I mean, even George Washington was asked by his father before he confessed to his misdeed of chopping down the supposed cherry tree. If I had known in the moment, I would have jumped right in and helped to clean it up (and probably would have included Bryce in that process).

I guess I keep wishing this mother had been able to show my son some grace. We all, like kids, make mistakes which lead to horrible messes. Oftentimes, those horrible messes inconvenience other people. Thank goodness, God responds to our mishaps with unending grace. He doesn't whisk our glass shards away (and sometimes, someone even gets hurt from the shards).  But, He never banishes us from His presence.

Hopefully, this will motivate me to be more gracious towards others. I know I didn't feel too gracious towards the boy who rammed my son's bike (and many of his actions were malicious). I suppose I should also be gracious towards this other mom. Perhaps she was responding to other factors. Perhaps she had stumbled upon a hidden figurative shard of broken glass. I was amazed at how many extra little pieces I kept finding long after I thought I was done with my clean up job. Broken glass can be a lot like broken lives - shattering, dangerous, and complicated to clean up. I want to know and give more grace in the face of broken glass.