She Gets It

I have learned a lot of things from my three children.

I have learned to have a great deal of patience, and I am sure that is a lesson that I will keep on learning until I draw my last breath. I have learned how to make a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich -- or to cheat and just buy the Uncrustables. I have learned how to distract a child from a temper tantrum. I have learned how to do multiple things at one time while holding at least one child. I have learned how to survive on little to no sleep, and I have learned how to sleep with a kicking, thumb-sucking toddler.

Basically, I have learned to be a mom, and a fairly good one at that (in my humble opinion ;-)).

Lately, I have learned a lot from Miss Priss about being a Christian. She, at seven, has come to know what it has taken me a whole thirty years to know.

Miss Priss does not compartmentalize her Christian self from her everyday self -- they are one and the same. Being a Christian is not part of who she is -- it is who she is. She is constantly thinking about and talking about God, and she is always telling others about Jesus and His role as her Saviour. She is constantly striving to be more like Him even though she knows that she can never actually attain that goal.

How do I know all of this?

Some examples...

We were riding in the car one day, and the Eric Church song Love Your Love the Most came on. It is a country song about how this guy loves all these things -- Nascar, his mama's cooking, Jack Daniels & Coke, etc -- but what he loves the most is the love of his girlfriend/wife/whatever. Miss Priss said, "You know, Mommy, he must not be a Christian because Christians love God the most -- even more than mommies or daddies or boyfriends or girlfriends."

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Deuteronomy 6:5

Miss Priss makes it well known that she is a Christian even through her school work. Her class has to do sentences with their spelling words each week, and she uses that time to talk about God. Some of the sentences that she has written this year include:

The Bible is full of true stories.

Jesus said follow me.

I will always love God the most.

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:6-9

Miss Priss wants others to be Christians and to be saved like she is. She told me the other day that she was going to take a little craft that she had made at Children's Chapel and give it to a girl in her class -- then she could tell the little girl about Jesus and about how He had died for her.

And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Matthew 4:19

One day when it was just the two of us, Miss Priss said "Mommy, I try really hard to be just like God wants me to be. You know, like Him. But I just can't do it. I try really, really hard, and I pray to Him to make me more like Him, but I just can't do it."

(Aside from nearly breaking my heart in two that she said that, I explained to her that none of us is perfect. Jesus was the only perfect human -- and he was also perfectly God at the same time -- and all we can do is try to be as much like Him as we can; and, when we fail, we just have to try again.)

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate, I do...For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Romans 7:15,18

Now, I realize that Miss Priss is seven, and she hasn't learned about being politically correct. She hasn't learned that others aren't Christians and honestly don't want to be. She doesn't understand that there are other religions that people practice. She doesn't understand that it isn't "cool" to talk about being a Christian to her friends who aren't.

I pray that most of those things are lessons that she never learns. I pray that she never tries to separate her Christian self from her everyday self. I pray that more of us become like her and make being a Christian not just an attribute of who we are but the very essence of who we are.

Was it not Jesus who said that we should all have the faith of a little child?

Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Mark 10:15

So, while there are plenty of things that I can teach my daughter, I can also learn a lot from her...and I do every day.