Playground Preacher

I figure that my darling daughter, Lila deserves her own post as we move into this deployment.  So many days she is my light in the gray, miserable, Washington rain.  She is also the biggest help I could ever ask for with her two younger brothers and I probably don't tell her nearly often enough how proud of her I am. She also astounds me at times.  I remember once upon a time, my friend Millie told me that I had an "old soul."  That's what I see with Lila. She is wise beyond her years.  Sometimes her faith and belief astound me, with both its intensity and purity.

Last spring, during a couple week period of multiple road trips, Lila read her Story Bible from cover to cover on her own. Not only did she read it, but she comprehended and absorbed it and afterwards would correct you if you said something that was wrong. Shortly after she did that my neighbor approached me and told me that her son had been coming home and asking lots of questions about God and Jesus.  She said that when she asked him where he was hearing this stuff from, he told her Lila.  Apparently she was on the playground telling everyone all about God and Jesus and the stories she knew from the Bible. At the time, I didn't really know a lot about their religious background, but did know that they didn't go to church at all.  I felt super-uncomfortable and told her that I hoped Lila hadn't started a conversation that she didn't really want to discuss, which afterwards I did think, "Why am I apologizing?", but you know, it was just a weird situation.  Well, it was really great, because she actually said that no she didn't have an issue with it at all and was glad that he was asking questions as they didn't really discuss it before. However, from that point on, Lila was dubbed the "Playground Preacher." We still call her that on occasion.  She has on multiple occasions complained about not being able to talk about the Bible at school and has even asked to go to a Christian School.  Hopefully, we will be able to make that happen in the next few years.

Since that time, Lila has kept reading the Bible, moving to progressively more difficult story versions and now her ICB version.  We have never forced her to read it, but just seems to crave it. There is such an amazing purity in her love of God, even in her prayer.   Sometimes, the things she prays for even catches me completely off guard.  With Cory being deployed, our prayers have started including prayers for his safety and health as well as all his soldiers.  She prays nightly for the families of the soldiers to have faith and not be scared. Those things I fully expected she would add to her nightly prayers, but the thing that caught me off guard was the first night when in her sweet little voice she said, "And please help the bad guys get right with you Lord and change their ways."  Took.  My.  Breath. Away. I do love that sweet, precious child.

When Christians Question Christians

I have been debating writing this post all afternoon after a conversation/debate with a friend via Facebook left me feeling very out of sorts, disturbed would be the best way to put it I guess, maybe even a little hurt.  Now, I will say I should never have even gotten started in the conversation in question to begin with and should have known better.  Please do know as you read this, I mean no disrespect to the other person involved in this conversation at all, but I think the direction the conversation went is a testament to some of the situations I sometimes find myself in as a Christian who doesn’t always follow along with the mainstream.

I have a friend (well lots of friend actually) who have varying beliefs about homosexuality and specifically gay marriage. It is no secret that I fully support gay marriage.  I make no secret of it and often find myself in heated conversations about it. Well, today, I once again opened my big fat mouth in response to a Facebook post.  I just couldn’t help myself.  I have had debates with this friend before and they have gotten rather heated in the past.  However, we have always remained friends and just agreed to disagree.  We’ve actually had conversations about the benefit of having friends who challenge you. I thought today was just the same.  Our debate included conversations about the constitution, freedom of religion, civil rights and pretty much the same as our previous conversations when the conversation took a turn I never saw coming.  I was told, “…. I just wish you took God's word as literally as you do the constitution...”  Ummm, wow.  It completely 100% caught me off guard.  My immediate thought was, “Ouch.  How dare she question my faith?”  When I told her pretty much exactly that, the response I got was that she had every right to question me and that when I professed to be a Christian but don’t support His laws my faith is called into question.  I did and still do 100% feel that calling someone into question like that, especially when it comes to their beliefs and faith is wrong, especially when I don’t feel like it doesn’t come from a place of concern about my well-being as a Christian, but from anger/discontent over different beliefs. I felt like I was basically getting told I was a bad Christian, if there even is such a thing.  Now, I am not saying that is how it was intended, but definitely the way it felt.

I know that some think we should take the Bible literally as it is written and a lot of people say there is no room for interpretation.  My question to that is then how the heck is it that we have so many denominations of Christianity, all with varying beliefs?  I’m a Methodist and we believe in infant baptism and have the scripture to back it up.  However, Baptists believe in full-submersion Baptism when you are ready to publicly commit to Christ.  They also have scripture to back up their belief.  Catholics has very different beliefs from Protestants.  We’re all Christians, though, right? If the leaders of the varying denominations have different interpretations of the Bible and they can’t come to a consensus and they are experts on the topic, then how is it that there isn’t room for interpretation? And why do we all have to be so caught up with being right? I mean if we as Christians feel the need to attack each others beliefs and call each other wrong, then what does that really say about us?  And how can we really impact the world if we are too busy arguing among ourselves to really help? I think healthy debate and discussion is a good thing, but not when it means we have to question whether you are a true Christian because you have varying opinions.

I guess as a Christian this is my thing.  You hear all the time about there being less Christians today.  I don’t even know if the statistics are correct, but I do know that I see a lot of people that automatically make judgments about me when they find out I am a Christian because of what they see on TV.   “Oh, you’re one of those church people.” I think as Christians one of the biggest things we can do is bring other people to Christianity. For me, I want people to look at me, the life I lead, the kind of person I am, my lack of judgment and disdain for those that feel differently than me and think, “Wow, she’s pretty cool.  If that’s what a Christian is then maybe I ought to find out what it is all about.”  I think that’s how I bring other to Christ. I don’t claim to be an expert.  I don’t claim to have all the answers or be the perfect Christian.  I don’t claim that my beliefs about certain subjects are the “right” ones, but they are mine and those beliefs are the things that help me sleep at night knowing that I am the kind of person I want to be.