100%

"I wish you were dead!" he yelled and ran from Olena, who stood silent and sad.  Since my struggle through hepatitis the first months after our Ethiopian adoption, 22 year-old Olena has worked with us four days a week, to help lighten the load and bless the household.  She is gentle, kind and loves the children well.  The words he yelled in her face, we'd never heard from any of the Littles, nor could we understand his outburst.

I directed the boy to 'my office', the bathroom, and sought an idea of natural consequences in my mind for his harshness.  He stood sturdy, with his feet rooted to the ground, his chin down and his lower lip pursed in what initially appeared to be stubbornness.  I leaned in to ask him what he had done, not why, as that introduces a string of excuses.  He pressed his chin down further, almost as if he were backing up, then came the flood, "I'm so sorry Mama...I didn't mean it...I don't want Olena to die!" He felt horrified at the gravity of his own words.  I reached for him, he buried his face in my shoulder and sobbed.  I did not discipline him.  We stepped out of the bathroom together and tearfully he asked forgiveness of Olena, which she gave without delay.

In our attempt to raise these Littles to love well, with selflessness, justice and compassion, they must understand mercy.  The combination of 'how' we live is this: 100% grace and 100% truth (the idea of this combo was first expressed by Pastor Jim Fleming).  On that afternoon, the child's own grief and sorrow over his sin was enough.  The lavish grace God pours over us as we seek his Truth must be reflected in our reactions to the most difficult situations our children and loved ones face.  There are times when the very best consequences are none, and I remember with humility, that this is the way Jesus ultimately loves me.