I don’t know about your house, but at my house, the devil always shows up on Sunday.
Everyone’s attitude stinks! Most Sundays I think, “Why am I trying to get ready for church?! Is it even worth it?!” as my boys poke, pinch, spit, slap, kick, scream and hurl little boy insults at each other. 
You know the ones. My oldest will say, “You’re a poo-poo head!” while my youngest replies, “Well you’re a dumb dumb bully butt face!”
What?! Where do they hear these things?!
This morning was no different. As I’m sitting in the garage honking the horn for them to GET IN THE CAR, my oldest pops his head out of the house and yells, “Heeeeeee’s poooooooooopiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin’!”
Awesome.
We finally get on our way and I’m listening to one of my favorite songs from Natalie Grant called “In the End.” It talks about Heaven and how we will understand everything in the end. (Plus it has a banjo and I can’t be in a bad mood listening to a banjo.)
My youngest pipes up and says, “Mommy what is Heaven, like a big bright ball or somethin’?”
I’m thinking to myself, “How do I answer this? I’m in a mood, I’ve been short-tempered all morning… what do I say?”
So I responded the best I could, “Well, Darling, imagine the best place you have ever been and multiply it times infinity. It will be like nothing we’ve ever seen. It will be the most incredible place we could ever dream of. In fact, I’m not sure I can imagine the level of absolute contentment we will know and have.”
It was quiet for a few moments when my older son speaks out.
“You mean it’s gonna be better than Florida?!”
“Yes Loves. It will in fact be better than Florida…”
Can you relate to the questions without easy answers? How do you handle it?
Even A Girl Like Me 
LOL …. Joy…. My kids are 26, 24, and 21 and we still fight to get out of the house sane and to church on time! My son is best at keeping us waiting…. he knows how long it takes to get to church and if we speed we can get there in this amount of time so it’s all good to him. 🙂
Those questions are opportunities to mold them…. I do know if we don’t answer they will stop asking so I always wanted to give the best answer I could even if I did not know we could talk about why the answer was elusive.
We laugh at some of the questions we have been asked over the years. My wife was waiting on Jessi to get off the bus as a kindergartener and she got off holding up her middle finger to her mom wanting to know what does this mean. Our youngest Esther was at the dinner table and just shouted out “what does Sh… t mean?? The ones that hurt were when they wanted to know if Santa Claus were real. When I told Jessi the answer to that question she thought and sadly said well what about the Easter Bunny?
As they have gotten older the harder question to answer has been why does God keep them waiting? Why do good people suffer? Why is love elusive?
Oh wow!
The middle finger question made me laugh 😉
You’re so right about making sure I answer their questions so that they keep asking them.
When Bella asked me about Santa Claus I told her, “You can always believe in the magic of Santa Claus… the giving… the childlike anticipation.” That answer was good enough for her.
I hope God will prepare me more and more so that when they are older and know more about what is going on, I am able to speak wisdom and truth into their hearts and minds.
Blessings Mark!
Sounds like my Sunday mornings. My husband is a pastor, so it’s just me and the kids rummaging through the morning trying to get out the door. As far as questions, my little boy was asking me last night about dying and why people had to die (if sunday mornings are hard to answer tough questions, bedtime, when we’re on our last rope, comes in a close second). I do the best I can with the answers, and usually it does help soften my mood.
Yes!
My hubs is the production director at our church so he’s up long before the sun and home late.
I can so relate to the life altering questions before bed!!! Do you think they do that to stay awake longer or is it just that they have paused long enough to acknowledge a thought?
It’s hard when I’m trying to get them to go to sleep and my patience ran out long ago.
I have found that they are the most talkative before bed so I try to be attentive. It’s hard when they are asking questions about God and eternity. Sometimes I have to say, “I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s a wonderful question.” They usually say, “That’s okay mom. You don’t have to know all the answers. I’ll ask dad.”
Thanks Rebekah for echoing my thoughts and reinforcing that I’m not in this alone 😉
Blessings and Light.
I laughed out loud at the “I’ll ask dad” comment!