Gosh Darn It Pizza: What a Botched Pie Taught Me About Grace
We’re supposed to do inner-work, gritty spiritual and moral work, with others around us. It’s their grace when we make mistakes that transforms us.
The kids were hungry. And as they hurried into the kitchen and chirped at me for another snack, I withheld another slice of cheese and assured them I was close.
And then, with dinner on the line, I screwed up.
I had rolled the crust so thick, it felt like a beanbag. After three minutes of pre-baking, the bounce-house-looking crust rolled and was caught over the edge of the pizza stone. When I went to pull it out, the crust separated from the base so badly I thought it was beyond repair.
And I yelled. Loud enough that the big three boys heard me through a brick wall outside and came running. Robyn came to my aid too—assuring me that we still had one pizza in good shape and offering to grate some cheese for me.
The truth? It wasn’t really about the pizza.
It was about everything else: the stress of our newborn’s health and surgeries, the onslaught of demands at work, the unpredictable news cycle, and being weary from solo parenting most of the day. This pizza was the one thing I knew I could do right that day. And when I botched that too, it broke open the anger I’d been ignoring.
I had worked so damn hard for that dough, however deformed it was. I didn’t want to just pitch it.
I tried to make the best of it by ripping off the pillowy, bounce-house-scale crusts and making them into breadsticks. This left the pie crustless, jagged, and super thin. I added sauce and fixings to both pies and thought—let’s see how this goes—as I peeled them back into the oven for their final bake.
The family laughed supportively as I introduced the “Gosh Darn It” pizza to our Saturday night table.
I took off my apron and moped to the table, setting out everyone’s water bottles, still feeling the sting of the moment. Bo turned to me—so sweet, so kind, so gentle—and said, “It’s SO good, Papa. These breadsticks are the best. I love Gosh Darn It pizza.”
And in that small moment, my spirit rose.
Suddenly, my anger and embarrassment became relief. It was all fine. We were all together, eating pizza—and that’s really all anyone wanted.
Our house is its quietest when everyone starts on their first slice on pizza night. And as everyone happily munched away, I wondered: maybe “Gosh Darn It” pizza just accidentally became a new tradition.
Sometimes great new things come from mistakes we made the best of.
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But as I reflect a morning later, there’s more to learn here about growth.
As I see it, this story is a good metaphor because we are all Gosh Darn It pizzas. Me, you, my kids, your kids—all of us.
We’re all so imperfect. Many things about each of us feel like a flaw or a mistake. We all screw up, and our charge to grow—spiritually and morally—is to become something better by making the best of our mistakes. That’s all we can do.
Inner work—that slow, winding journey toward becoming more whole—doesn’t follow a straight path. It’s like a long walk through the woods. It’s cold and windy, and you can’t do it alone.
If not for my family—checking on me, helping me, encouraging me, and offering me grace—my deformed dough would’ve become garbage instead of Gosh Darn It pizza.
And this is what I want to remember most about that Saturday night: we’re meant to walk this winding path toward goodness together, because what transforms us is the grace from those sitting next to us—even when, and maybe especially when, we’re just trying to turn some imperfect dough into a Gosh Darn It pizza.