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.