I knew this question would come someday...

Kids ask a lot of questions. They are pretty good at it.


Some parents dread the question about where babies come from. Some parents avoid questions about death. Some parents get stumped on questions about God.


I love it when my kids ask questions. It means they are thinking. They are questioning. They are reasoning. Mostly, it means they are opening themselves up to have a "teachable moment." I don't know if I always have the best answers, but I always try. I also don't mind saying "I don't know" if I don't know the answer (to the utter disappointment of the kids, mind you.)Thankfully, my husband has great answers and really thrives on explaining things in a way that helps kids understand, so I can always refer to him.


Today, however, I faced a new question from Jonah on the way to school. It is a question I knew would come sooner or later, but I guess I was thinking it would come later. Much later, in fact. I think I imagined myself answering this question in junior high or high school, not the third week of kindergarten. And, no, it was not the baby question. It was this:

"Mom, why am I not home schooled?"

His friends are home schooled. His cousins are home schooled. I guess it is natural for him to wonder why he is not schooled at home like all these other kids we know and love. (Of course, Joey and I decided a while back that we could technically say we do home school our kids AND we send them to school. Because, really, what good parent doesn't educate their own kids every single day, right? We have just chosen to send our kids to an actual school to learn a bunch of important stuff in addition the the important stuff we teach them every day at home.- Okay, that is silly, I know.)

Anyway, I didn't explain that to Jonah when he asked the question. I just simply told him the truth. I said, "well, Jonah - Mommy and Daddy prayed about it and God said no." That seems like a pretty simple, cut and dry answer, right? Nope. His next question was...

"How does God "say no"?"

Way to go, Jonah. Good question. I love that his brain is working. I proceeded to tell him the rather shortened version of THIS really long process. Basically, I told him that God often "says" things to people by giving them a peace about a certain decision or by leading them to a part of the Bible that helps them make that decision. For us, I told him that I had prayed a lot about it and God led me to read and think about the people in the Bible that we named our kids after (you know, the Biblical Jonah and Hannah). I told him that the Biblical Jonah was asked by God to leave his home, his country and his people and go to another land in order to tell those people about God and what God expected of them.

I then told Jonah that we felt like God had helped us decide to send him to school instead of keeping him home so that he also could be an example and a testimony for God in the school that he went to. I could see his brain working for a few seconds, then he said this:

"Mom, we're five."

-CRACKED-

-ME-

-UP-

Oh yes, son. You are adorable. You are five. I'm not trying to put pressure on you or the weight of the world on your shoulders, just trying to speak promise and truth over your life from the earliest date. I know you are just five years old...

But...

even so...

"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." (1 Timothy 4:12)

Love you, son.