I guess one of the joys and terrors of parenting is answering the questions your children are bound to ask. We’ve had some pretty good ones in the last year, so I thought it’d be fun to write them down.

Here they are, in no particular order.

Hope:

“Mommy, if God is righteous and would never do anything wrong, then why did He tell Abraham to take the life of his son Isaac? Doesn’t the Bible say that killing is wrong? I don’t understand.”

“Mommy, before Adam and Eve sinned, when they walked with God… was God still invisible to them?”

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Sophia:

“Mommy, does God know all the people that will believe in Him?”

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Gracie

“Mommy, what are feelings?” Seriously, have you ever tried to define the concept of feelings without using the word “feel”? It took me a good five minutes to come up with an answer. Let alone the fact that I was driving the car, ending a phone call about lunch plans, and hoping for a red light so I could put on my make-up. Their timing!

A few days later she asked, “What does ‘after’ mean?”

Hope

This one she asked while really thinking through salvation. I thought it was pretty interesting that even at five we want to figure out a way to gain our own righteousness. “So Mommy, what if a person could stop sinning and only do good things for the rest of their life. Could they go to heaven then?”

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And for a light ending, yesterday I saw Gracie in the middle of the living room, arms extended, passionately preaching. It didn’t take long to realize she was being Jonah. (She was the only one there) After a few more minutes, she dropped her hands and looked dejectedly up, “God, the people of Nineveh just won’t settle down!”