“I love coming here because I get to ask lots of questions” says Diamante my step-niece. She is (was) Adam’s step-daughter. After he passed away she and my two nephews have been spending one night every week with Chris and I. The questions start as soon as the visits and right up to bringing them to school the next morning.
This week she asked “how deep is the sea?” I said “I don’t know, Google what’s the deepest point of the ocean.” Of course she came back with “what’s the difference between the sea and the ocean?” I pulled sometime out of my butt (as Adam called it when I was guessing but not letting on that I was) and said “the sea is closer to land and the ocean is the larger water between continence.” We did Google it later and I was mostly right… see Adam.
Daunte who is 6 and Talon who is 3 were playing under my bed and found a box of Adam pictures. Daunte, with a disgusted look on his face asked “why do you have pictures of MY daddy?” I responded with a smile and “because he’s my brother and I love him.” He followed up with “can I have them?” Daunte doesn’t really care to share his daddy. He’s 6 and just lost his dad, of course he’s going to feel that way.
When bedtime comes around we read and pray. The book Diamante and I are now reading is Cross Purposes. It (not that she needs couching for a question) brings up questions about God, Jesus and faith vs. religion. She comes up with some doozies! Some I answer by saying “I believe or I feel”… there are always questions that I say “I don’t know, I’ve never thought to ask that one.” Last night she came back with “why not, don’t you want to know?”
After saying her prayers, I left her room with tears in my eyes for the reason that she had told me… “You know Sara, Adam dying brought me two good things. Coming here and wanting to know more about God.” (I couldn’t have said it better myself Mante.)
When I was her age or maybe younger, I remember asking my Grandma a question about God. I think it’s safe to say, at the time my grandma didn’t know the answer because she came back with “we don’t question God!” I believe, deep in my heart God wants us to ask questions about him. He wants us to know him and asking questions is how we do that.
Questioning things is how we seek for the truth. So many times in life we get stuck in knowing just what we know. We grow to fit in the small part of the world we live in and sometimes we just don’t have a desire to expand. It’s comfortable.
Today I’m looking at it like this. A few years ago, Chris the wonderful husband he is, built me a large standing cage for my pet snakes. This is a big deal because he doesn’t care much for snakes. Before he built it I had two corn snakes living in a small fish aquarium. They weren’t cramped but they wouldn’t grow much more in the space they were living. Now that they have been moved to the larger cage they have grown about three feet longer. The point I’m trying to make is we get to decide how big our cage is. Our cage is our mind. Our cage is our thoughts. Our cage is the amount of knowledge we hold. Asking questions about any subject is how we grow, how we develop. Uncovering truths is how we expand in life, in the love for ourselves and in the love for what Jesus Christ did for each and every one of us.
“My friends, may you grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ...” 2 Peter 3:18
Prayer for the week: God of Light and Truth, thank you for giving us a mind that can know and a heart that can love. Help us to keep learning everyday of our lives, for all knowledge leads to you. Let us be aware of your presence in all things and at all times. Grant us the grace to put our mind to use exploring the world you have created, confident that in you there’s a wisdom that is real. We pray this in Jesus’ name. ~Amen
.♥.✿•❥☆.ƸӜƷ¸.☆.♥.✿´❤~Sara
No comments:
Post a Comment