More Morning Conversation

Thursday night we had horrible storms. These were scary storms with all the bells and whistles; thunder, lightning, hail, strong winds and even tornadoes. Sirens sounded and Hannah and I headed to the basement. I wish I had a finished basement with a TV! Hannah and I sat on the steps of the basement so we could still hear the TV, and, because there are bugs down there! As we sat there listening to the sirens and the ominous sound of hail hitting our house, we prayed. We asked God to be with us and keep us safe. The storms came and went and came again several times through the night. Around 2:00 in the morning, Hannah was sound asleep, but I was awake listening to the sound of powerful winds pound against my house. I was scared.

When we woke on Friday morning around 6:00 a.m. the storms had all passed. I surveyed the house, the yard, the neighborhood and saw no signs of any damage. Watching the morning news it became clear that not all areas of the city had been so fortunate. Homes and businesses were completely destroyed. Power was out in whole sections of the city. The storm had left its mark. And we were untouched.

As we began getting ready for the day, Hannah commented about how scary the storms had been. I reminded her that we had prayed and God had kept us safe. She, in her 10 years of wisdom, calmly asked "why did He keep us safe, but not others?" Wow, that is a good question. My mind raced and I thought to myself, "why in the world does she pick the mornings to have these types of conversations." I can not express enough, I am NOT a morning person! "Well, Hannah," I said "I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that we live in a sinful world where bad things happen. We won't know all the whys until we get to heaven and ask, but I imagine we will be in such awe of God's mighty power and glory we may not care to ask all the whys." I went on, because again, that is what I tend to do, and explained that when we pray God has promised that He will hear us and He will answer us. But His answer might not always be what we want. God answers with yes, no, or not now. She took this in, pondered it a bit and said "when I get to heaven I'm going to ask Him lots of things".

And so we finished getting ready and off to work and school we went with the birds singing a lovely tune as we started our day....yeah, right! Deep waters kept a comin'. She continued the deep conversation by declaring that there must be a lot of people in heaven because someone dies every two minutes and someone is born every two minutes. I have no idea where she got this statistic or if it is accurate. I reminded her that not everyone goes to heaven when they die, but only those with a personal relationship with Jesus will go to heaven. I told her that Jesus said "I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me". And that Jesus said "small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." I went on explaining that the world wants to believe there are lots of ways to heaven. But the truth is that there is only one way to heaven and that is through God's son. We ended our conversation with a prayer, thanking God for keeping us safe through the storms and for His son Jesus who paid our price on the cross.

I think I handled this one fairly well. I may have had a couple of words incorrect when I was quoting scripture and I didn't know the references, but the points were made. And then as the day went on and I thought about all we had discussed my mind was filled with doubt. Proverbs 22:6 tells us to "train up a child in the way he should go". How, I ask? I do not feel qualified for this job. I didn't go to seminary. I don't have enough scripture memorized. I haven't even taught a Sunday School class. Who am I to teach her about God? As the doubt flooded in, God reminded me of all the unlikely people he has used. David was nothing more than a shepherd boy. Moses even argued with God and said He should use someone else, but God used Moses in mighty ways. The apostle Paul had persecuted God's people, but God used him in ways that Paul could have never imagined. And then there are the many stories of mothers that God used. Mary was the most unlikely candidate. She was young and unmarried. Yet, God chose her to carry His son, the one that would come to save the world. I don't need to go to seminary to teach my child about God, I just need to be the vessel and let God work through me.