The Beginning of Understanding

-

My kids are under the weather, but in spite of their coughs we needed groceries, so yesterday we packed up and headed to the grocery store. Across the street from the grocery store is a small cemetery that has sparked many questions from my new four-year-old. Here was yesterday's conversation:

N: Mommy, are people under those? (Pointing to the headstones)

Mommy: Well, their bodies are under those, but their spirit, which is the part of you that makes you feel happy, sad, and makes you be able to think and talk, is not in the body any more.

N: The bodies stay here and the spirit goes up up up.

Mommy: Yes, if you are a Christian your spirit goes up to Heaven. If you are not, then you go to hell. (upon saying this I regretted it, because I think I need to spend more time in prayer before introducing the subject of hell. Salvation needs to come as a result of understanding sinfulness and Christ's role as redeemer, not because we want to avoid the negative of hell. Thankfully, there was no question about it.)

N: Am I a Christian?

Mommy: The way you become a Christian is by asking Jesus to be your savior. Have you done that?

N: No.

(Long pause)

N: But I'm not a teenager yet.

And that was that. Her logic is quite interesting. Hopefully at some point we can discuss that you don't have to be a teenager to be saved from your sinfulness.
It struck me this morning that I was four-ish when I realized my sin, that I needed a savior, and accepted God's gift of salvation. Now that we are out of the baby stage, it is time for some more focused training for my darling daughter. Her understanding to the gospel gets a little more clear every day.

Comments

The Harrisons said…
She is such a deep thinker! You are doing a great job as a mommy!!!
March 17, 2010 at 5:57 AM
Unknown said…
Yes you were around 4 when you trusted the Lord as your Savior- Thankfully for Natalie you are far more prepared for those hard questions than I was as a brand new Christian myself at that time.

I love you Nicole you are doing a WONDERFUL job.
MOM
March 17, 2010 at 6:04 AM
Janna said…
Amen! It's just the like the Bible said, Even a child is know by his doings and His truth is so simple even a child can understand.

Will pray for truth to keep penetrating her heart!
March 17, 2010 at 1:34 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Story Begins

-
Image
I am participating in a really fun project that is the brainchild of my friend Janna, who regularly blogs at The Adventure of Motherhood . Her project, entitled Mommy's Piggy Tales , encourages moms to blog about their childhood in 15 weeks. Here is the button if you want to learn more or consider joining. My dad, my mom, and me. My daughter, N, has that quilt now. Every year for Christmas my brother and I received our very own holiday ornament. Starting with the “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament, these ornaments usually reflected something we accomplished or did during the soon-to-be-past year. For example, the year I got my driver’s license, my ornament was Daffy Duck in a shiny new car. Every year we enjoyed putting “our” ornaments on the tree. It was a wonderful time to reflect back over our lives and the memories we had made. Sometimes we asked the reason behind the ornament, and learned a little more about our histories. When I married, I got a box with my ornaments in it to ...
Read more

Preschool: Life Changing Years

-
Image
I have been thinking since last week about what to write when it comes to preschool. I am participating in a fun project put on by my friend Janna at Mommy's Piggy Tales. Check it out! There are so many options. I could write about my imaginary friend, Polk-a-Roo, who I was actually a little afraid of. I could write about losing my favorite My-Little-Pony, Firefly, in the sandbox when some mean boys buried it at preschool. I could write about my only child, only grandchild years before my brother came along. I could write about my first “best friend,” the girl across the street (Klaire), who I sobbed over when it was time to move away. I could write about all of those things, but the truth is my preschool years are some of the most important of my life. See, my parents wanted me to be a “good person.” To reach that goal, they started going to church. Not long after they started attending church, something happened that would change the course of my life forever. My parents, throug...
Read more

Christmas Miracle

-
Image
Natalie was hamming it up for Tim the other night. Well, a lot has been going on in the past two months. About a month or so after the miscarriage, I was noticing something wasn't quite as it should be. I took a pregnancy test, and it came back positive. That was strange to me, because we were trying to prevent that as requested by the doctor. They called me in for blood work, and everything was indicating that I was pregnant. I was quite confused, as you can probably imagine. Two weeks ago we went in to have an ultrasound. That was eight weeks after the miscarriage. In that ultrasound they found what appeared to be a baby developing at 5 weeks gestation. We were quite perplexed, of course, because in our minds it should be about 8 weeks. The doctor asked us to come back today because at 7 weeks they should be able to see a heartbeat. The doctor said there was a good chance that there were just leftovers in there because of the earlier miscarriage, but that my numbers (hormone leve...
Read more