Sunday, January 5, 2014

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Last night Abbie, my four-year-old, asked me to give her a "daddy's bubble bath."  This means that she wants LOTS of bubbles, and she wants to stay in there until all the bubbles are gone and the water is cool.  

So I loaded her in and watched as she was playing around.  Then she looked up at me and asked, "Can I tell you a story?"  I affirmed that she could.  She got very serious -- she has a special voice for her story times -- and this is what she said:

I have come to tell you the truth.  You may think you know the truth, but I must make sure that you do know the truth.

The past is in the past.  There is nothing you can do about the past.  The past must stay in the past because it is past.  The only ones who have the power to do anything with the past is God and Jesus.  We must leave the past alone.  

It is our job to tell everyone the truth.  The truth is that God lives in Heaven.  God wants us to live in Heaven with Him.  To do this, we must let go of the past and accept the truth.  Jesus lives with God.  And we should live with them.

There is an evil power who does not want us to know about the truth.  His name is the devil.  He is bad.  He came to me one time and bit my finger, and I told him to go away because he did not know the truth.  But he did not want to go.

I interrupted the story at this point to ask her if she knew how to get rid of the devil.  She did not.  So I told her that when she feels the devil is around her that she can simply pray out loud and say, "God, keep the devil away from me." and that the devil has no power that is greater than God.  She said, "Cool,"  and went back to her story...

The devil is bad.  He will not be able to live in Heaven with God because he does bad things like when he tried to bite my finger. The devil does not want us to tell people the truth.  He wants for people to live with him in the other place.  But, we must resist.   We must smash the devil's soul.  We know the truth and we must spread the truth.

And then story time was over and she got carried away with smashing bubbles.

I sat in amusement as she began her story because she is so serious about all of her stories -- most of them are about dolphins.  Then I began to actually focus on what she was saying. And then all I could say, was "amen little sister."