Saturday morning I told my girls that I would take them to see Bolt at the theater that afternoon.
They played sweetly together most of the morning, but midway through the day they just kept getting on each other's nerves, and after several warnings to stop didn't prevent them from aggravating each other, I finally employed the nuclear option. "Never mind on the movie," I said and explained why.

An hour or so later, I was giving them a bath in preparation for errands. I had decided that I would spring the movie on them as a surprise and use my changed mind as a way to explain grace to them (which Becky and I do a lot).

During the bath, Grace said, "I've gotta get my neck clean because I can't take dirt on my neck into the movie theater."

"Why do you think you're going to a movie?" I asked. "I told you we weren't."

She looked at me unfazed and said, "Yeah, but I prayed to God and said I'd be sweet and I know he'll give me a second chance."

Turns out after I left the room after taking the movie plan away, both girls decided to pray to God to apologize for not being sweet and to ask for another chance.

Isn't it awesome that we worship the God of second (and third and fourth and fifth . . .) chances?

It was also weird and fun to have been the unwitting answer to my daughters' prayer!

(We're still working on the concept of being sweet not to avoid consequences or to have consequences rescinded but because it's the right thing to do. :-)