Blowing bubble gum bubbles, whistling, and snapping.  These are all things that my boys want to be able to do, but I have no idea how to teach them.  I’ve tried breaking them down into steps:  stick the gum behind your teeth, push your tongue through the gum and blow.

But no matter how many times they try, the result is usually a pathetic ball of gum hanging from their lips – no bubble.

In desperation, my 5-year-old will have me blow a bubble and then give him the gum to put in his mouth… then he pretends he blew the bubble.

We haven’t had any better luck with whistling or snapping.  Whistling results in more of a humming sound while snapping produces no sound at all.  My husband and I were talking about it, we don’t remember learning any of these… it just sort of happens and then you know how to do it forever.  Maybe you remember learning, but most likely you don’t.  You probably remember the joy of blowing those bubbles and whistling and snapping your fingers because it seems like at some point we all figured it out.  Although maybe you didn’t, I mean after all my 38-year-old husband still can’t properly shuffle a deck of cards.  (Sorry to throw you under the bus Jeff… you are amazing at so many things that I am in awe of, but shuffling cards… not so much.)

Thinking about this makes me wonder what other things my children will need to learn that I won’t know how to teach.  I’m sure there will be a lot – but the one that scares me is knowing God’s grace.  Why would that scare me?  Grace is God’s unmerited favor.  Grace is God’s forgiveness of our sins.

I believe that in order for us to fully understand who God is and how much He loves us, we need to know the fullness of God’s grace.  I’m always teaching my boys about this.  When they mess up, I often use it as a teaching moment of God’s forgiveness – that we are not good enough for God because we all mess up which is sin.  That our sin has an eternal punishment beyond an earthly time-out.  But Jesus took our punishment when he died on the cross.  That we need to thank Jesus for taking our punishment so that we could be forgiven.  Grace.

I can tell them all about it… and I’m praying that they’ll “know” the fullness of God’s grace without needing to experience it for anything major.  But most likely, they’ll need to really mess up at some point to grasp how deep, how wide, how long is the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:18) that He displays through His grace.  And that’s what scares me… so for now, I’ll just stick to bubbles, whistles, and snaps.

♥Becki