Deep Conversations

I don't read to my kids every night before bed because it does the opposite of wind them down. It gets them talking, asking questions and wanting me to read more and more.

For some reason I thought tonight would be different since we had such a long and tiring day. Maybe they would just listen to a short thing I read and go to sleep. Nope. Caleb then wanted to read out loud and I didn't want to turn him down since I know that's good for him to do especially in the second grade. He started reading about Noah's Ark which he's heard a bunch of times I'm sure.

This time at the end the questions came: "So when there's a rainbow, God made it?" When there's a flood did God make that too?" "Why did He destroy everything?" "Can't He just hit people with lightning if they're doing something wrong instead of flooding them so He doesn't break His promise?" Etc. etc. etc. I answered as best I could one by one and left off on the note that God loves people and even though there's lots of people that do really bad things, we're here to love them and show them God's love so that they too can believe in Jesus and will go to heaven. (Which I thought was a light note to end on)

I kissed him and Evan good night and then hear whimpering in the room "I don't want to die", with Evan replying "You're not going to now". I go in and ask Caleb what made him think of that and he said he was thinking about Heaven and how you die before you go to Heaven and then he thought about himself dying and experiencing death and it overwhelmed him with fear and sadness. (Those are my words not his) I tried to comfort him telling him that not everyone that dies go through a painful death (I was NOT about to say some people die in their sleep - he'd be up all night thinking that tonight may be the night haha) I told him he has a lot more life to live and a purpose here on Earth to love God, family, friends, neighbors and to share the love of God etc.  (which I realize now was the same way I ended the first conversation haha). I then told him that Heaven is a beautiful place and there's no more fear, crying, bad things etc. It seemed to calm him down a little.

There was much more back and forth about life, death, how old people were, Jesus dying, God's power, healing, prayer...and the list could go on and on and on.
I told him he's a deep thinker and he's going to grow up to be a good man.
He then went into all the questions about if working is hard and tiring.
Somehow it ended on the thought that in China it may be day time right now since it's dark here and how he wishes he could have their night and NY's night so he had more night time to relax and get the rest he needs. I love him so much and wish I had all the answers to his many questions.  Oh my little man, he is a deep thinker & feeler for sure and I hope he does get the peace and rest from that fast moving brain of his.