By Cooper
My husband and I are not much for organized religion. We attend church for baptisms, funerals and the odd holiday, but other than that we have remained somewhat detached from the general area of "worship."
That is not to say we aren't spiritual. I think I speak for both of us when I say my husband and I find God in a peaceful lake or a blue sky or a baby's cheek.
Still, it came as a bit of a surprise to us when, about a month ago, our 5-year-old daughter FOUND THE LORD.
It started with a lot of questions we were hard pressed to answer like: Who is God? Where is God? Does God get mad at bad guys? Does God hear us talking?
I really thought about buying a book on this, since I'm pretty sure our responses weren't terribly informative. She kept asking the same questions.
And then she started singing -- nonstop -- "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing."
When I ask her to clean up her toys or hang up her coat she says things like, "No, I can't do that. God is my boss." Or if I tell her I think she is wonderful she responds, "I am glad you said that because you just made God so happy."
The other night, as we were having dinner, God came up again.
"If God is everywhere and can do anything, then He can eat," our daughter said as she placed one grain of white rice in the middle of the table.
We stared at the rice for about a minute. God did not eat it.
Try explaining that one.
Editor's Note: Cooper is a new DotMom. You can read her bio here.
that would make me crazy.
being non-xtian and having in-laws that are very xtian makes things very complicated with questions like these. and i don't know that this is the best way to address questions about god, but here's what i do.
i want my child to grow up with a tolerance of all beliefs as long as they are not harmful. so when asked about god, i give answers that go something like, 'some people believe that god is .... other people believe that god is ....' this way, she -hopefully- knows that there are many beliefs out there and not one true answer to that question. hopefully one day, when she figures out what god is to her, she will be comfortable with whatever that is, even if it is not the mainstream idea.
Posted by: autumn hour | November 30, 2004 at 12:20 AM
My question is, where has she been getting her information from? (Who's been filling her little head with the Lord?) We sent our son to a church sponsored pre-school(we were assured the religious aspect was very low level and it was)but they offered thanks before snack time and he never knew exactly who he was thanking. I bought a kiddie bible for our older son and he never cracked it open. Maybe it's time to pass it on.
Posted by: GG | November 29, 2004 at 05:47 PM
Does your daughter go to any Sunday school? Just wondering, We are thinking about it for our daughter just to simply teach her what we can't answer. We are NOT terribly religious and we can never claim to know much about God and His work.
Posted by: Goldberry | November 29, 2004 at 04:54 PM
Welcome to DotMoms Cooper. I have to say, your post made me laugh right out loud. We're going through similar things too ...
The other day my daughter Emma made a comment about someone's hair looking like GOD'S HAIR.
The statement made me stop in my tracks.
"How do you know what God's hair looks like?"
"He was at the ceremony when Great Nana died!"
I thought for a minute. A-ha. She thought the priest was God.
Posted by: andrea | November 29, 2004 at 01:48 PM