I sit on the edge of my bed, tears squeezing past closed eyelids. I’m rehashing a conversation that went badly, replaying my words in my head, wondering where I goofed, how my gently-intended words were so misunderstood, how an evening went from peace to a snarl of unhappiness that I can’t shake hours later. Was the fault mine? Was there overreaction on the other person’s part? I don’t know.   I just wish I hadn’t spoken.

There’s a ballroom scene I’ve seen in a dozen movies, dancers spinning briskly around the room, couples moving different directions, none colliding, choreography picture perfect. Not even in my most idealistic moments would I expect family life to resemble that picture. Of course in the family dance, there are collisions between dancers now and then. Moments that bump, resulting in tears and apologies and direction changes to avoid future insult.

Really, though, family life isn’t a bit like a ballroom. It’s more like cramming the whole crew into a small kitchen, opening the dishwasher and the silverware drawer and half a dozen cupboards, and then assigning everyone a different task. It’s hot and crowded and everyone’s in a hurry and when you’re not getting kicked in the shins, you’re banging your head or your hip on a door.  And danged right you’re irritated at the person blocking the knife drawer, because how the heck are you gonna cut this onion?

That’s why we all desperately require grace. I need to give grace to the guy who just jabbed me in the ribs, so that he can go on to give grace to the one who kicked him in the shins, so she can then pass grace to the one who just growled threateningly. Because in something as tight as a family, the dynamic is all about reactivity.

Yeah, sometimes usually always that means forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve it.   It means biting back retorts richly deserved.   It means forgiving thoughtlessness and smallness of heart and emotion-fueled stupidity all in the interest of peace.  Because if I spew frustration, no matter how justified, that frustration is going to spill to the next person, and the next, until the whole family is one big snarl of unhappy emotion. We’re all swimming in the same stew after all.

But if I can model grace, if I can strive to not take offense, I can be a part of the best kind of chain reaction there is, where one kind act leads to another.  Where love and grace are spread by people conscious they’re being loved better than they deserve.  It’s a hard, hard thing to do.  One that can only be done imperfectly, and only by God’s power.  But, oh, how I want that atmosphere to permeate my family.

Let it begin with me.