How do you explain...?
We had a beautiful weekend together. We were able to take our three year old son to fly his first kite, to play his first game of miniature golf, and to the zoo.
We also took flowers to their grandpa's grave. Our one year old daughter is much too young to even have to explain this to, but our newly turned three year old is another story. Just how do you explain such a complicated concept to a young child? His grandpa died one week before he was born, so he only knows him as his papa in heaven. We decided to tell him exactly how it was. We explained to him that this was where his papa's body was buried but that his spirit was alive in heaven with God and Jesus. We explained that when people die they bury their bodies in a box under the ground and then cover it up again. We explained that some day when Jesus comes back that those same bodies will rise up out of the ground and our spirit and our body will be together again. Surely, no one will dare to accuse us of watering things down for him because of his age. The reason we explain things in this manner, which he seemed to grasp far better than I had expected by the way, is because I do not under any circumstances want him to come to me when he is five or six with questions about these things and have him ask me why I had told him something different when he was younger. I feel I would be discrediting the Gospel if I tell him something I feel he will be able to understand and then have to change it and/or add onto it later. I admit the questions of , what body? what ground? died? etc. can get a little tedious of answering after the fourth or fifth time of each one being asked, but it is important not to brush these questions aside because children are most definitely learning from these questions and the answers given to them. He understands far more than I did at his age. Of course, my parents were not Christians and did not approach things in this way. On the drive there I questioned if we should tell him everything, but as we arrived I knew that was the right thing to do.
It seems too many people are scared to use this approach with children, and even with adults. They want to water it down so that the hearer is able to comprehend it, to understand it, when the truth is we will never comprehend all that God is, we will never understand in full the mystery of Christ and His sacrifice for us. It is something that requires faith. We are not doing God any favors by not telling our children or the people we come into contact with the full Gospel. We are not helping them by keeping them comfortable either. We are in fact contributing to the many false converts who profess to be Christians but have no roots.
We also took flowers to their grandpa's grave. Our one year old daughter is much too young to even have to explain this to, but our newly turned three year old is another story. Just how do you explain such a complicated concept to a young child? His grandpa died one week before he was born, so he only knows him as his papa in heaven. We decided to tell him exactly how it was. We explained to him that this was where his papa's body was buried but that his spirit was alive in heaven with God and Jesus. We explained that when people die they bury their bodies in a box under the ground and then cover it up again. We explained that some day when Jesus comes back that those same bodies will rise up out of the ground and our spirit and our body will be together again. Surely, no one will dare to accuse us of watering things down for him because of his age. The reason we explain things in this manner, which he seemed to grasp far better than I had expected by the way, is because I do not under any circumstances want him to come to me when he is five or six with questions about these things and have him ask me why I had told him something different when he was younger. I feel I would be discrediting the Gospel if I tell him something I feel he will be able to understand and then have to change it and/or add onto it later. I admit the questions of , what body? what ground? died? etc. can get a little tedious of answering after the fourth or fifth time of each one being asked, but it is important not to brush these questions aside because children are most definitely learning from these questions and the answers given to them. He understands far more than I did at his age. Of course, my parents were not Christians and did not approach things in this way. On the drive there I questioned if we should tell him everything, but as we arrived I knew that was the right thing to do.
It seems too many people are scared to use this approach with children, and even with adults. They want to water it down so that the hearer is able to comprehend it, to understand it, when the truth is we will never comprehend all that God is, we will never understand in full the mystery of Christ and His sacrifice for us. It is something that requires faith. We are not doing God any favors by not telling our children or the people we come into contact with the full Gospel. We are not helping them by keeping them comfortable either. We are in fact contributing to the many false converts who profess to be Christians but have no roots.
posted by Monica at 11:36 AM
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