Conversations

I wanted to sit down and blog tonight because I didn't want the conversations I had with my girls' at bedtime to fade from my memory. I wanted to share them because, like so many moments with children, conversations with little ones are always more profound and deep than you expect them to be.

So, to set this up, let me go back a bit...

This past weekend our family took a little trip to Barnes & Noble to get some new reading material, which is always a favorite past-time. Of course the girls were more interested in the gazillion toys the store now offers, but we finally lured them into the kids reading area where we spent ample time perusing the shelves. One of the things we wanted to get for the girls was a story Bible because - to be frank - religion hasn't really been a big part of our household these past years. The "Why?" behind that is a long explanation, and something I'll reserve for future blog posts. What I want to talk about in this post tonight is the amazing, spiritual conversations that have been sparked by telling my kids these stories from the Bible.

My oldest - we'll call her "M" - is on the downward slope towards six, going on sixteen. She's your typical oldest kid; smart, a bit hyper-sensitive, and always wants to please and be praised.

My middle child - "C" - is closing in on four and is a typical middle sister; outgoing, funny, and marches to the beat of her own drum.

The youngest - "L" - just turned two and is already trying to out-talk her older sib's. She's the no-nonsense one of the group; observant, determined, super bright and a little too sly for her own good.

They're an awesome little trio, and I love watching them together and look forward as they start getting older and growing into their relationships with one another more and more.

Since "L" is still little, she's the first to hit the hay at night, and then the older two get a bedtime story and do their nightly ablutions before crawling into bed. Most nights, lately, the girls' (especially "M") have been wanting a couple of stories from the new Bible we bought. We started at the beginning and have, so far, read our way to Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and back to the Promised Land.

Tonight we started with Moses at Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and then coming down the mountain to find his people already breaking a law by dancing around the golden calf. Now this is a critical learning-point in Christian, Judaic and Islamic theology, so I was surprised at how my oldest, "M," was affected by the story and what happened thereafter, and how easily she understood its true import. So much so, that I think the following conversations will stay with me for a long time....

M: "Oh no! They already broke one of the rules!"
Me: "You're right. They did. Which one did they break?"
M: "The one about not worshipping other gods."
Me: "You're a little sponge!"
M: *Giggling, then serious.* "Is God going to be mad?"
Me: "Well, they broke a rule, but they didn't know it was a rule at the time. And God can be forgiving."
M: "Because God forgives people if they ask?"
Me: "Yes, if they truly feel bad about what they did and they mean it and they repent, God can forgive people."
M: "Were the people bad? Bad people do bad things."
Me: "Well sometimes good people do bad things too, honey. Everybody sins. That's why we have to be mindful of what we do and make sure we keep God in our lives."
M: "Because when people forget God they do bad things?"
Me: "Yes, honey. Sometimes people forget God and do bad things. Sometimes people don't even realize they forgot God because they just got caught up in their own lives."
M: "You mean they were selfish?"
Me: "You know, M, I think you understand this better than a lot of adults."
M: "Really??!!"
Me: "Really...."

-- We read about Moses going back up the mountain and getting the Commandments again, building the Tabernacle, the Arc of the Covenant, the journey into Canaan, and the Hebrews deciding it's too hard and turning back to Egypt (less Moses, Joshua and Caleb). --

C: "Why are they going back?"
Me: "Because they think there will be a war with the people living in Canaan and they don't want to face something unknown and scary; they'd rather go back from where they came - where they were slaves. They didn't have enough faith in God to trust that he would deliver on his promise."
C: "What's faith?"
M: "Believing in something with your heart. Right, Mom?"
Me: "That's a good way of explaining it, honey."
M: "I have faith. I believe in God."
Me: *Smiling* "I know you do. You have a good heart, M. You keep loving God and He'll love you."
C: "I love God, too!"
Me: *Still smiling* "He loves you too."
C: "Is God a boy?"
Me: "God is something not easily definable, sweetie. God exists in a place that isn't truly here. We connect with God on a spiritual level because we can feel something greater than us moving in the world, and that feeling, that understanding, is God. But in the Bible we refer to God as "He" because that's how they wrote it and how people for millenia have been better able to understand it."
C: "So God's not a boy?"
M: "God is whatever you believe Her to be since you can't really see Her. She's everywhere."
C: "Is God camouflaged?"
Me: *Laughing* "C you make me laugh. God isn't like a chameleon. But, you know, in some poetic way, yes, God is camouflaged to us. Sometimes we don't see God, even when He's right in front of us because He either doesn't want us to, or we're just not looking hard enough."
M: "Tonight I'm going to go to bed and look for God in my dreams."
Me: "That's really poetic, M!"
M: "I'm looking forward to meeting Her."
Me: *Smiling* "I hope you meet Her and always know Her, sweetheart."