animals and Rilla and remembering and heaven and theological questions and purpose and such

If you read the post about our random animal visitors, here is something that kind of ties into it.

When we go to the home of our friends each week for Bible study, we usually pass the town graveyard. It is green and pretty, with mature trees and lots of flowers on the various graves. Rilla began saying last year that she wanted to go play there, then asking if we could go play there, then asking what the place was. (These were conversations that kind of evolved through the weeks.) Not being ready to explain to our then-two-year-old what graveyards are for, I have told her that it is a place for remembering people. She has been pretty satisfied with that explanation for a while, but in the last few weeks, she seems to have jumped to it being a place not just for remembering people, but for just plain remembering. And having been disappointed with my recent not-omniscient explanations (namely, "Honey, I don't know") as to whose dog and pig have been wandering into our yard, she now says as we drive past the graveyard, "Mommy, I think sometime we will go over there, and you will remember whose dog and pig it is."

Ha ha ha. Okay, I don't know if that is actually funny to anyone else. But it really cracks me up. It is just so my little logical Rilla, who has an explanation and a story for EV. RY. THING.

Other than skirting a directly factual explanation of how graveyards work, we have a lot of discussions in this home about God and heaven. Rilla is fascinated by heaven. And why not? It's going to be a pretty fascinating place! We have a book for young children called What About Heaven? that has been fantastically useful in explaining many things. Then too it is pretty handy that Keith and I both have degrees from Bible college and have studied the Word fairly in-depth on such subjects. Rilla has so many questions about heaven and I just love them. One of my favorite conclusions that she came up with about how, exactly, Jesus ascended into heaven after rising from the dead is that He climbed up on a mountain and then JUMPED (she illustrates this by crouching waaay down and then springing into the air) really high! and floated way up like a balloon!

So we talk about things. About when we will go to heaven, and about how we will get there, and about whether Jesus has a play kitchen in his house for Rilla and Abraham to play with, and when we will go there (she assumes that we will all go together; I tell her we will each go when our life here is finished), and whether He will have extra clothes for them. And ever so many other three-year-old kind of questions that I just really love. But the other day she finally succeeded in totally stumping me. Are you ready, theologically-minded friends? How would you answer this question?

"When we get to heaven, will you nurse Ezekiel?"

Well, um, I don't know!

If he is grown up when he goes to heaven, then I'm going to go with no. But if some kind of tragic accident were to happen (although I'm much in the habit of praying against those) and we all went right now... then... well? I don't know! I am pretty much stumped on this one. I was wondering how old my girl would be when she stumped me with a theological question, and I now have my answer on that: three. She is three.

Although if you are wondering about my answers to the other questions about play kitchens and extra clothes, the answer is yes. Jesus has those.

Is it strange to talk so much about heaven at this age? I love talking about theology-related matters with my daughter. And she loves it too. Does that seem odd? I really do enjoy talking about it with her. I have spent a significant amount of time and desire seeking that I will number my days rightly so that I may gain a heart of wisdom. Purposeful living means knowing that my time here is temporary, the life to come eternal. It means living with the knowledge that all men are like grass, and that their glory is like the flowers of the field, which are here today and gone tomorrow. I really want our children to live their lives well, knowing that this life is but a breath, and that death is not to be feared, but rather that it is a part of the grand picture. When we close our eyes here, we will wake up there. Knowing that life is short is a big part of what keeps me living it purposefully.

Don't get me wrong, I am loving this part, and the life God has given me here is so utmostly beautiful that I cry when I see my babies growing, because I love this life SO much that I don't want the time to pass even a minute before I have fully savored this time to the very, very utmost. But... then too... I know that the life to come will be even better. Even more beautiful. The place and the King in whom all sorrow and tears and mourning are gone forever... yep, I do think that is worth talking about and worth looking forward to. I think it is typical now in our culture and even in our churches to flee from really thinking about how long our lives are, about how to live them well, about heaven will look like. But why? How can we live purposefully if we aren't thinking about what and Who we are living towards?

That is probably all a garble. I feel like it weirds people out to start thinking or talking very much about heaven. But I also feel like it shouldn't.

"For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with You." (Psalm 139:13-18)