Oh Yeah Buddy - They're Real

Hey there you insanely faithful readers (I say that because if you’re still hanging in there with me you have to be faithful at this point – I’ve been horrible with keeping up with this blog, but I am trying). Sorry I didn’t get to post anything last week – we went on vacation, and I brought my laptop with me thinking that I’d sneak off and post at some point, only to find that they didn’t have free internet where we were staying! Now, not that writing isn’t worth paying the $9.95 a day fee at least once to post, but the goal here is to make money writing at some point, not to have to pay to do it. So anyway, I’m here now for a quick post and I’ll put up some pictures later of our Spring Break fun for you to enjoy!

In the meantime, I have a bit of a – well, “situation” (for lack of a better term) – that I could use some help with. Little Man’s little imagination has been blooming and budding as of late, and it’s led to some really interesting conversations, one of which I have no idea how to handle.

He’s in this mode of realizing that there could be more to this life than what he just sees with his eyes. He’s realizing that he has feelings, and a heart (and not just the one that he can hear “beeping” after he runs fast), and thoughts and dreams, and the whole thing is just fascinating to him. I admit that some of his concepts are a little fuzzy, like when he told me the other day that I can’t hurt his feelings because “they work at Wal-Mart” (I don’t really even know what that means, but I don’t think it was supposed to be as funny as his daddy and I found it to be…). But some of the things he’s exploring are starting to hedge on some pretty deep theological truths.

I guess to begin, I should say that Little Man has some new friends. “Benbizable” friends, that is. Four of them. Two skeletons, and two black ghosts (yeah, I know, a little morbid, but apparently that’s how his brain works). All four of them are named Squirt. No, not like, Squirt, Squirt, Squirt and Squirt – the unit of friends as a whole is just Squirt, and is often referred to as “he”, but never “they” (I guess almost like a trinity thing here, I don’t know).

So Little Man likes to play with Squirt and talk about Squirt and tell other people about Squirt (“I have Squirt and it’s skeleton, skeleton, black ghost, black ghost…). And when he plays with Squirt his name changes too – suddenly he is no longer Little Man, but Cowboy Squirt Cake.

Yeah, I know. Disturbing. But it gets better.

He also has two other “benbizable” friends, and this is where it gets tricky. These other two are the same benbizable friends that Mommy talks to all the time but he can’t ever see… Can you see where this is going?

So, yeah, his other two benbizable friends are named God and Jesus. Um, yeah, I told you it was tricky. I tried to explain that, unlike Squirt, God and Jesus really are real, but he most certainly thinks I’ve lost my mind. We’ve gone through the questions so many times: “So where is God? Can I touch Him? Can I step on Him? Why can’t I see Him? Why can’t I hear Him? Why can He see me and hear me if He’s not here? How big is He? Can He fit in my bed? Well, can He fit in my bed?” And lately it usually ends this way: “Mommy, just take God with you when you leave – take Him out of my room.”

The other night apparently God didn’t follow me out, so Little Man got out of bed about 30 minutes after bed time and marched into the living room dragging God by the hand. “Now sit here, God – on the couch.” Then he went back to bed and fell asleep.

Oh dear.

So what do you do? On the one hand it’s hard not to laugh when he tells Jesus that He’d better finish all His carrots and clean His plate before He leaves the dinner table, but on the other hand you don’t want to encourage him to think that his heavenly Father and Holy Savior are figments of make-believe (or that at least one of them is something to be freaked out by at night).

The truth of it is, my sweet little confused three year old is asking the same essential question as people 10 to 20 times his age. How do we know that God is real when we can’t see Him or touch Him? Faith, Little Man. Faith is what I tell him. He doesn’t know what that means, really, but to tell you the truth he’s freer to accept it than a lot of those older people are. His mind hasn’t been confused and confined yet by the things that he thinks he can see in this world, and that gives him a great advantage.

I’m scared to death over how to field these deep questions of his, but so excited to see them forming so early in his tiny little brain. If you have any suggestions about how to tactfully distinguish between Squirt and God in a way he might grasp, I’m totally open to comments!

What a weird, wild journey this whole parenting thing is. I’m so thankful, though, that the Lord has a sense of humor and keeps us laughing through these wonderfully strange little creations of His.

Oh, goodness – I just thought of something. “The Lord”? Does Mommy have a third “benbizable” friend that we just haven’t talked much about yet? Hmmm… looks like we might have another one of those deep conversations tonight…