His Grace is Enough

His Grace is Enough, Melissa Kruger

I loved reading rhyming books to my children. We have fond memories of time spent curled up on the couch, or before bedtime, enjoying the clever ways that authors made words fit together.

Rhyming picture books were the first books my children could ‘read’ back to us, having memorised the lilt of the familiar sounds and how they fit together. Our shelves still groan under the weight of favourites, whose words are easily recalled years later. I think of Goodnight Moon, The Little Yellow Digger, My Friend Bear and There’s a House Inside My Mummy to name but a few.

If I had still young children, this charming new picture book by Melissa Kruger would also make it to the favourites section, especially because rather than teaching about animals or machinery, it teaches little ones about God’s generous gift of grace.

His Grace is Enough starts with children hiding because they know they have done something wrong, but the mum says:

I’ve got something important
To tell you today
It’s TRUE and it’s HOPEFUL
And helps guide your way

God’s grace is enough
It’s so BIG and so FREE
His grace is enough
Both for YOU and for ME.

Kruger explains the message of sin and grace in an accessible and engaging way for young children. So, whether you make mistakes, or tell lies, or are mean to people, God knows and he offers grace. If you try to make it all better and do everything right, God still knows your heart and that you need grace.

Here’s how it works:
Jesus died on the cross
WE gain new life
Because HE suffered loss

Though we don’t deserve it
Our God is SO KIND
That’s grace pure and simple
The BEST thing to find

The repetition of God’s grace being big and free is likely to stick in little minds and become something families say together. The message is spot on, helping little ones begin to grasp God’s grace which saves freely yet also calls for change.

Indeed these are the truths proclaimed by Paul to the Ephesians:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph 2:4-9)

For parents and carers who are reading aloud, this fresh reminder of God’s grace might just be the balm we need as well. We also sin. We make mistakes, we hurt people, and we try to make it on our own. Just like the children around us, we need to be reminded God’s grace is freely given and his mercies are new every morning. Indeed, many of us already know the refreshment offered by God’s truths through well-crafted rhyme:

Amazing grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Isobel Lundie has shown her considerable illustrative skill, bringing to life fun, dynamic kids and adults of numerous cultures and various situations. For me, there were echoes of the wonderfully detailed Richard Scarry books I grew up on. The words are crucial to a picture book, but it’s the illustrations that sell it, and these certainly do that.

I’m excited to see that Kruger and Lundie they have another collaboration coming out later this year (Wherever You Go, I Want You to Know). It’s a treat to have wonderful Christian resources to share with the little ones in our lives.

This review was first published on TCGA last month.