Thursday, April 7, 2011

Jesus Fills

Lennon has a homework assignment every week which includes creating sentences using her spelling words. Many of these sentences have given me insane amounts of joy, i.e. "President Obama is a president." (Duh.) (Also, so cute.) I also really enjoyed "You never know when turtles are sleeping." Like I said, insane amounts of joy.

Tonight, Lennon approached me and asked, "Mom, is it okay if I talk about Jesus at school?"

Trick question, fools. Because, seriously, you never know if your kid is the one thumping a Bible and preaching fire and brimstone to the crowds of "heathen children." On the other hand, your kid could be the one telling everyone Jesus was a hippie who dug prostitutes. Seriously, you just NEVER know.

So I asked her about context.

"What do you want to say about Jesus at school?"

"That He filled."

Again, tough one. Filled what, exactly? His quota of lepers? Could she have enough information for this kind of speculation?

"I just want to tell my teacher in my spelling sentence that 'Jesus filled the Earth.'"

Oh, okay. Innocent enough. Probably. Sort of. I have no clue.

"Could you pick something else to say about the word 'filled'? Like, 'Daddy filled the gas tank' or 'Mom filled the house with beauty'?"

"No, I want to say something nice about Jesus. Please?"

Good God, how do you argue with that?

"Mom, why not? Why don't we talk about Jesus at school? Is it because he's just for church?"

This is about the point where I gave up entirely. I closed my eyes and did the forehead clutch and everything. I'm all for separation of church and state, but if a kid wants to openly say nice things about Jesus, who am I to get in her way?

"You can talk about Jesus. I'm just not sure I understand what you mean by 'Jesus filled the Earth.' What did he fill it with?"

"With, like people and plants, and stuff around us. You know. He just filled it with everything we know. He filled the Earth. With, like, Love."

And that's the story of how my heart exploded into a million pieces, and then reformed, only to re-explode, and then form again into a pillow-soft, oven-warmed gushy mess of admiration and love for the little girl who shared Jesus with me.


4 comments:

Brissa said...

this is darling. nothing beats the innocence and sincerity of children.

Kristin said...

Tears!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She's so cute and smart and sweet...I love me some Len.

The Wizzle said...

*kisses for Lennon*

*mommy high-five for Renee*

Anonymous said...

This post is awesome.