age five.

there's nothing like having a five year old ask you questions about life/death, God, heaven, and forever-ness that, in explaining it in 3 ft terms, helps keep it simple for your own life. let me break it down...

on the way home from the store today, jessa was firing away all kinds of questions about Jesus, God, and all things heavenly.

"God can see us everywhere we go. But how does He get here?"

"Where is Jesus? Where's God? What is a throne?"

"Are we going to die really soon? I don't want to die, but I'm not scared to die."

"When daddy gets really, really, really, really old, is he going to die too? Like in 'UP'?"

"Where is heaven? Is it in the sky?"

"Does everybody love Jesus?"

"What does God look like?"

after playing twenty questions, i realized she's at a pivotal age of soaking in the things of eternity. the concepts of the divine. and the understandings of who God is in her own life. things that go a little beyond the Creator of the blue sky and the green grass. things that reach a little deeper than 'bless this food to my body'. she's at the age where her imagination can become truth. and that's really, really cool stuff. after all, it was five that found me knelt by my bedside finding the same hope she's discovering. a time i'll never forget, with my mom right by my own side.

her simplistically complicated questions caused a little probing of the heart in myself. i tend to make my life a bit more complicated than it really is. i'm good at taking my circumstances and robbing them of the true experience they really are in the sight of God's will. i'm a pro at pitying myself for hardship, when in fact, it's a gift that's used to draw me closer to the Lord. i take challenges and forget to call them blessings. i tend to use the term joy only when i'm happy, when i'm called to 'rejoice always!'

with all of my adult-complicated-over-justifying behavior, i have a little girl to remind me that Jesus came in love and grace. He died. He rose. He lives. He has a plan. it's a beautiful, un-complicated plan that brings restoration to 'dying' people. and along the way, we're called to forgive, praise, hope, and endure.

Lord,

even when i'm feeling defeated, i pray you put victory in my heart and use it as a living sacrifice of praise.