Gifts and Grace

A few days ago I found this beautiful dresser that I thought would be perfect in our nursery. Its still weird to be thinking like that but its exciting. I showed the picture to Casey and he said it was nice but no. Now isn't the right time for me to be making purchases. You see, we put in a new furnace, duct work, and air conditioning this week so that we could make a new bedroom. One large expense so we needed to cut back in other areas for a while. I get what he is saying and want to honor his words, so I told the person selling it that I wouldn't be able to buy it. To be honest, it was hard but also really good to follow Casey's lead on this. I know the stress he is under and want to do my best not to add to it.

This morning I received a message from the seller and she said that they were moving tomorrow and if we could come pick it up today, we could just have the dresser since they couldn't take it with them. I was blown away by their generosity. This is an amazing gift to us since I knew we would have to wait quite a while and pray that something would be available that we would like. So here is the beautiful dresser:

And grace, oh grace. We talk so often about showing grace to one another, especially our children. I struggle with how to do this. I want to show them grace. I also want to teach them obedience. Where is the line? Tonight we went to Chick Fil A for their Cow Appreciation Day. We had been struggling with obedience during the day and needed a specific child to really work on listening or doing what he was asked. We thought we were showing grace by going out to a free dinner tonight even though attitudes might have dictated otherwise. Dinner was great, they were well behaved and appreciative. After dinner we thought we would run to costco to get a frozen yogurt for the kids to split(thank you costco for splitting one into three cups!). Unfortunately while we were there before we bought the frozen yogurt the kids kept running around after we told them and reminded them that they needed to walk and stay with us. So, they lost their option for frozen yogurt. It was a sad moment filled with some anger due to disappointment. One child chimed in and said, "Why can't you show us grace and just get us frozen yogurt anyway?" This is a great question. Back to the balance of grace and obedience. Still don't know the right answer most of the time. I need to keep reading and praying about it. I would love others advice in this area.