Oh the Questions!

It's time again for a little input from Sarah. Hope you enjoy. . .

The other day Peter went to Holly to do a short Graveside Service. This man had been in the Military, so he was buried at the National Cemetery there. The kids have been crazy lately (I foolishly thought this would end after Christmas) and I decided this would be a great opportunity to get out of the house for a bit. We often take advantage of extra miles that Peter has to drive for work to spend time with him. I took my Bible study with me, hoping that the kids would fall asleep and I could sit in the car while he did the service. Perfect! They both woke up the minute we drove into the Cemetery. Why is it that so many of my great ideas so rarely get carried out!?

From where our car was, we could see the Veterans standing straight with their guns in the air. I should’ve been prepared for the barrage of questions that come from any three year old:

“Mommy, why do those men have guns? Are they going to shoot my Daddy?”
“No, Son. They are soldiers. They protect us from the Bad Guys”

Bad guys are a hot commodity in our house. William loves to talk about them, play games with ‘bad guys’, pretend he is the bad guy . . . (When I tried to teach him to call out the name “Jesus!” if he was ever scared of a bad guy, he replied that he’d just get out his sword and kill them himself.). So I thought this would be a good analogy for his little mind. Until a man walked out of the pavilion with his long black coat: “There’s the Bad Guy, Mommy! They’re going to shoot him!”

Next, I got this question: “Mommy, why do some people die? Am I going to die?” Now, this is very tricky. Do I give him a sense of false hope?-- “You won’t die for a very long time”. Or do I give him the harsh truth?—“Yes. You’ll die”. Or do I give him the huge theological discourse?—“William, we never know when our last breath will come. Then again, Jesus may come at the blink of the eye to separate the sheep from the goats. . .” Instead I simply told him, “You probably won’t die until you’re a grandpa.” I’m pretty sure this is going to backfire on me.

I quickly tried to change the subject. It wasn’t that hard to do as the Veterans commenced their 21-gun salute at this point. Again, the questions about shooting came and I realized it was getting very hot in the car. At this point I was wondering why in the world I thought this was going to be a nice, relaxing afternoon.

As the soldiers turned to march away, another man (a member of the VFW) with gold medals in his hat marched along with them. William, with reverence in his voice said, “Mommy! The King! The Soldiers are protecting their King!” Oh to have the awe and imagination of a three year old again!