Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Colossians 4:6

Grace is something that’s given but not deserved. It’s the free and unmerited favor of God, demonstrated when He sent His son as atonement for my sin. And i was the last thing on my mind last night when I noticed it was 9:30 p.m. and the kids were still going full-tilt—after I put them in bed for the third time. I just wanted them to go.to.sleep.
It’s daunting to realize that my kids are learning about grace … from me. To be honest, I sometimes wonder if God got the wrong girl. You see, I came to this motherhood thing broken in a thousand ways. I needed healing and a lot of grace. In short, I needed Jesus.

Over the past 24 years, God has shown me ten-thousand different kinds of grace. He’s good like that. God, through His son, Jesus, is grace personified. In fact, whenever you read the word grace in the Bible, you can substitute the name of Jesus. What does grace look like? It looks like Jesus. What does it sound like? It sounds like Jesus.

Sometimes, I admit, I don’t sound very much like Jesus to my kids. And honestly? If I can’t get that right, my witness isn’t worth very much. My kids know the “real” me. They will reflect to the world the kind of grace they learn at home. It matters now more than ever—because the world is asking important questions right now.

We’ve got to know how to give—and receive—grace. Why? Because God wants us to teach it. To testify. To bear witness to the faithful goodness of God.

Paul understood this. He wrote, “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts 20:24

He knew his ministry was to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. He knew that grace was the big deal.

The word grace is as over-used as “cool” these days, and I think we’ve forgotten how powerful grace is. Grace is love, personified. Grace is undeserved favor poured out over a lost world in the name of Jesus.

If you are not talking about what grace is with your kids, now is the time.

Give grace, sweet moms.