A 3-yr-old’s perspective

Kids say the darn-dist things sometimes, ya know?

My 6-yr-old came into my room the other day with a fun tattletale. “Mommy, Gabby told Kara (my 9-yr-0ld) that she’s a dummy.”

Gabby was right on her heels, but when she heard this, she turned around and ran out the room. You’ve heard of fight or flight, well…this girl could sprout wings! I made her come back in, and asked her if she’d called her sister dumb. At first, she turned her head a way, then I asked again, and she turned back. Her face was pensive, then suddenly lit up. “I said she was nice, Mommy!”

HA HA HA! Yes, evidently I was born yesterday. “Gabby, come sit down until you’re ready to tell me the truth.”

She came and sat with a pout.

I looked at her with the Mommy-look. “You’re gonna sit there until you tell the truth. Now, did you call your sister dumb?”

She laid down on her belly. “No, I said she was nice!!!”

“Gabby, I don’t think you did. Don’t lie to me.”

She thought for a moment, sighed, then looked up at me. “Mommy, but if I say yes, I’ll get in trouble!”

OH. MY. GOODNESS. My girl just sat there and said out loud the very reason that every child lies. She was still saying no. Just telling me why she was saying no. I gotta tell you, it was VERY hard not to laugh.

I explained, of course, that lying is wrong, and so was calling her sister dumb. It was even worse if she did both. She finally fessed up. Oh, what’s a mom to do!

Later that evening, we were saying her night-night-prayers. She doesn’t understand yet that she can just pray to Jesus with her own little words, so we have a “repeat-after-me” prayer for now. I added in that day, “Thank you for Jesus dying on the cross for my sins.”

She perked up. “We learned about that in church, Mommy! But why do we need to pray that?”

WOOHOO! She was listening! “Yes you did, and because Jesus died for us so we could go to heaven, we need to thank him for it, because he had to hurt a lot and a lot and a lot for us.” This is trying my best to simply for a child who tends to have a ton of fears.

My gabby sat up, her eyes wide. “I don’t like to die Mommy.”

Mommy was baffled and a wee bit speechless at first.

Gabby continued. “Because I don’t like it when I close my eyes and my tummy hurts. So yeah, I don’t like to die. I only want Jesus to die.”

I have to tell you, my first reaction was indignation. She WANTS Jesus to die only? I opened my mouth to rebuke, but then I closed it. She was really just telling the truth, the truth that most of us don’t want to say. Really, as horrible as dying on the cross was for Jesus, would we elect for him to go back and not do it? Would we really give up our access to heaven and an eternal life with our God to save Jesus from the cross? I know it isn’t a question we need to even answer, because Jesus DID die and we didn’t have a choice in the matter.

I am so thankful for what Jesus did. I truly am. But wow. It is humbling to realize that I, too, want Him to have died. And He did. For ME. A perfect, spotless, blameless Jesus gave his life, allowed himself to be tortured and beaten and killed, for a selfish human-being with faults up to my eyeballs, who still struggles with sin, who doesn’t deserve the gift of eternal life by any means.

I hope you join me today in a continued awe and rejoicing for what Jesus did for us.

Love you all, and have a MARVELOUS, VICTORIOUS Easter!