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Tonight while she was getting ready for bed, my daughter once again broached the subject of God. We have never spoken of God as I was raised without religion. I have always wanted to learn, and I have even gotten the NIV study bible and a fascinating book called “The Word On The Street” that summarizes the bible into lamens terms. (Great for beginners.) As we were talking, I decided I would take the opportunity to just teach Emma a few basic things.

First, she asked me if God was nice. I told her that he was. She asked me where he lived and then answered herself with the phrase, “God lives EVERYWHERE!” I told her that was right that God was everywhere but that he lived in a place called Heaven. She asked me where Heaven was and I answered in the only way I thought she’d understand. “Heaven is a place in the sky honey, that is hidden by the clouds. God lives there.” She looks at me wide eyed and then looks up at her ceiling. She says to me, “Mommy, I’m really sad at God right now.” I was pretty taken aback and I asked her why. She says, “God is hiding. That’s not nice. I want to see God.” I laughed and told her that one day we would see him, but for now he was hide-and-seeking with us. I told her that God loved her and was her friend. She said she wanted to talk to him, so I told her to put her hands together like this (folds hands into prayer position) and talk. She says, “Hello God, how are you today?” and then giggles. I proceed to teach her for the first time the bedtime prayer I learned as a child. I felt a little strange having my three year old utter “If I die before I wake,” but she seemed to enjoy it. I told her any time she wanted to talk to God, all she had to do was fold her hands or talk to the sky. I reassured her that God would always listen but never talk back. She replies with, “God will talk to me. Let me see if I can get him to talk to me. He’s going to be loud, like a car! Wee-woo-wee-woo.” That would be her impersonating a police car. Apparently, God drives one of those…

As I was getting her tucked in to bed, she looks at me and asks if we have any bedtime stories about God. I tell her we don’t, but we will soon. I have already decided to get her a toddler bible storybook. Now that she is actually showing interest and will hopefully be attending a preschool set inside of a church next month, I feel that it’s a great time to get her involved.

Once again, I will reiterate that I never learned about religion. I thought God and Jesus were the same person until I was told otherwise at the age of 21. I had never heard of things like original sin and I surely didn’t know the ten commandments. I had no idea that people used to live so much longer and I never knew that God demanded someone sacrifice a son for him atop a mountain. I still don’t know much about religion and I am a self proclaimed spiritualist/agnostic. I feel that I don’t know enough about religion to claim one because I didn’t grow up in a church or in a household that talked about God. As I grew up, I wanted to know more and more and I attempted sporadically to teach myself, but the bible isn’t an easy thing to learn. For that reason and a million others, I don’t want my daughter to grow up the same way I did. I’m lost when it comes to religion. I don’t know the basics and I feel that it’s difficult to teach her the things that even I don’t know. That’s where her church based preschool steps in. It also helps that Chad’s family is very religious so she gets a little bit of it when she’s at his families house too. I hope that one day she will be able to make an informed decision on if she wants a religion or not. I hope that she will grow up knowing faith and always feeling the loving hand of God on her shoulder. I didn’t have that luxery and once you’re in your mid twenties it becomes harder to accept that humans were 700 years old or that snakes talked and there are places like Heaven and Hell. Im not saying I don’t believe, I’m just saying the logical Scientific part of my brain has a hard time understanding and accepting those things. I don’t want that for my daughter. I want her to know God. I want her to have a relationship with God. Then, in the future, if she decides she doesn’t want to be a part of that, she doesn’t have to be. But at least she’ll know. At least she’ll understand.

For now, my baby is only 3. She’s laying in her bed talking to God like he’s an old friend. Asking him how he’s doing and why he lives in the sky. She’s hoping that he’ll answer back. We have years to learn and teach one another things like this, but for tonight I can’t help but smile at how amazing such a simple conversation is.

Peace, Love, and Faith.

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