Miles with apple trees and apple picker
I don’t know how to talk to them about God. I get worried that I should be saying more than I am.
I want to tell them all about the way that I’ve come to know He’s there and He loves me and I know they can’t fully understand an invisible Being that made them up and follows them around quite yet or ever.
Mystery.
I mean, that’s what it sounds like to them. I know because of the confused questions they ask and yet mystery is exactly where He is, in the best possible way. He is story on a breath and inside all quiet things, good or bad all working itself out to matter and mean something.
We are all just kids trying to make sense of things.
More and more I realize that not knowing things is how we stay open, less full of ourselves and the way we like to complicate things.There is freedom in accepting that we’re not to have all the answers in the ways we try to find them.
Religion-ize things. Strip Him of mystery. Try to out-do Him.
Here is God, I say to them, I hope, when we’re loving each other just for being us or saving each other from feeling unsafe. That’s when I try to put words to Him. He is this, I say. One day that will make perfect heart-gut sense to them.
I hope they come to feel Him in their bones and souls. I believe they will because He is there.
Here is God is not, I hope, what I speak in direct result of something they DO, because the only thing I know is that it All has nothing to do with that. What you do or don’t do. There is nothing you can do or not do to make unconditional love happen or it wouldn’t fit its definition.
Free. God love is for free. Totally. No strings.
But we’re all just kids so we keep trying to Do to figure out Mystery.
There is so much freedom in sitting down and saying I’m all emptied out and so tired and impatient and broken, I just have so much nothing to give.
Anything good we’re able to rise up and do is not of us and then we’ve met God. The good one who is moving our hands and mouths and fingertips. That’s what I think.
So we’re good amidst our trying and failings despite ourselves and that is grace. I want my children to know God that way and sometimes I’m nervous that I’m just failing at that too because I carry so much history of thinking it’s about doing and being so certain I MUST be doing it wrong. And then something happens, like Miles writing down a prayer for the first time ever and he asks me how to spell things out as he thanks…
“Thank you for (backwards 4) the trees. Thank you for (backwards 4) the earth. Apples. Love.”
Then I think, Oh yes there it is. He has seen God in God things. Because what I don’t know how to say we just try to live and then God speaks with His very own things. Of course.
{ 13 comments }
Gorgeous and true. The Mystery.
Thank you, friend.
Oh my. Just that. No words.
TheKitchenWitch recently posted..Happy
keeping Him a mystery, oh how I love this. If we could all try and keep that kid-like outlook towards Him, he wouldn’t be put into a human box.
Beautiful.
robin recently posted..Celebrating 2 years, with gratitude
Last night I snuggled with my littlest in his tiny bed and he told me that God is really tall and lives in Rio. Once I figured out he was talking about this, and explained it was just a statue of Jesus, he was quite frustrated, because after all, Jesus IS God.
More than that, I struggle every day to show them that God isn’t a checklist or a box. I want them to know what I’ve found, that He is real and true and so much more mystery and love than anything else. But then I remember that I didn’t find it until I was 25 and wonder if maybe all of my worry over them does the very same thing I want to avoid. So, just like you, I’m focusing on showing Him to them, every day, with love and love and more love.
I think children will see God so easily, with just a little bit of guidance. I’m also so amazed at how honest and true and good my children are, all on their own. I think it’s because it is easiest for God to fill up little children because they are not as full of distractions and doubts and ugly things like we grown ups are.
Lovely post, Heather.
So sweet.
I think children are closer to God as their souls are clean .They see and know him better and he comes to them quicker than to other people whose minds are closed.
Even then, he is delivered from the inside because we are all born with him inside.
God is I AM.
He is all. There is no escaping him,or fooling him.
He owns us all including the prankster devil.
This is why fighting over religion is stupid
God is beyond words or thoughts.
So then what is man’s problem?
Right?
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What a beautiful post. I can only imagine your heart when you read that prayer! You are being The Message…that’s the best way to teach them about God. <3
Jamie recently posted..Flashback Friday: Fun Weekend
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I am struggling most, my children simply and unknowingly bring me back to the center. I’m not sure if it’s that they are closer to God or that they don’t have as many distractions and expectations as adults do. Either way, my children are the biggest blessings and biggest lesson-givers in my life.
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I’m really struggling with this. With wanting to figure out the mystery because my heart is hurting right now and I want to know why and when it will stop. And wishing I knew the best way to give my boys a piece of my own faith, wobbly as it is right now. Thank you for this. It’s a good reminder. And my older boy telling me at bedtime that his “thankful for” today is that he got to play with me on the slide is all part of the mystery, is it not?
Jessica@Team Rasler recently posted..My first library corner
Oh Heather, I think you are my favorite writer of all time! This post made me cry and have an “Ah Ha!” moment all at the same time! When it is so hard and confusing, I can and will do this, say this, exude this:
“Here is God, I say to them, I hope, when we’re loving each other just for being us or saving each other from feeling unsafe. That’s when I try to put words to Him. He is this, I say. One day that will make perfect heart-gut sense to them.”
Thank you, Heather for sharing tools to get my babies comfy with my Savior.
When my children serve each other, when we read the scriptures, when we pray together, I ask them, “do you feel that? that good feeling in your heart? That is God telling you He is happy with what you’re doing”. That is how we explain it right now.
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God IS a mystery, but He also wants us to know Him and that’s why He gave us His word. He’s so far greater than us that we cannot fathom or understand HIm.
I love this post. I really love this post.
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Lovely. I don’t hold this same faith, but I understand trying to explain the mystery of joy and life to my children and then seeing it reflected in their understanding of the world just because. Despite all my explaining instead of because of it. Love your words.
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