It's No Lost Cause, Mr. Jonathan.

Jonathan was taking a bath. I was doing some cleaning.

"Mamaaaa!" He bellowed. With that urgent, "hurry up I'm stuck or I'm going to have a bathroom accident or maybe I just need a drink of juice really, really bad" tone.
I hustled inside.

"What's the matter?'

"Mama, there is NO WAY I can learn to be a good boy."

Pause, while I try to catch up with his train of thought. "What?" (I know; I'll write a book about my mad parenting communication skillz sometime soon.)

"There's no place to learn how to be a good boy," Jonathan explained, with some patience but really not much.

"But what about how Daddy and I teach you? What about preschool?" I asked.

"But Mamaaa (implied in his tone here is: But, Mama, please try to get your slow and sluggish brain to catch up with mine), there are piano lessons and violin lessons and karate lessons, but there is NO PLACE to go to learn how to be a good boy. So. I. Can't. Be. A. Good. Boy."

Right, I think. Good Boy lessons are hard to come by in this town. Maybe at the Y?

Turns out that Steve and Jonathan had had a long discussion that afternoon about consequences and discipline and why we are helping him "learn how to be a good boy."

After learning of this, I returned to Jonathan and spoke with him of Grace. I explained that no one is perfect; we all are broken and do things that hurt each other and hurt God's heart. But, I told him, the beautiful thing is that because of Jesus, God doesn't see those things when he looks at us. He sees how much he loves us, and that's it. In the end, we try to be good out of our love and thankfulness for what Jesus does for us.

His reply to my explanation was not unexpected.
"I just don't know how to be a good boy, though! So I can't be one."

He is only 4.
I've got 28 years on him, and
I'm still wading my way through legalism to fall into grace.

Don't despair, sweet Jonathan. It's not a lost cause.