The Time I Took Away Her Bible

Sometimes school is a hard place to be. Our kids can be mean to each other - no surprise to any mother who was once a kid herself. They are also highly invested in justice, which makes it tough to navigate the waters sometimes. You want to advise them to just stay out of things, but then again, you admire their chutzpah.

Little Sister is a compassionate little kid. Don't know where she got it. She was just made that way. In first grade, her teacher once contacted me to tell us they had run tornado drills in class, the ones where they're taught to crawl under their desks and cover their heads. Afterward, Little Sister had a question. "Where will you be, Teacher? How are you going to stay safe from the tornado?" Teacher said she'd never been asked that question before.

Since she could speak, Little Sister has inspected all of us for cuts, scrapes, bruises or bandaids. If she found any, she'd pat us and say, "Awwwww." She is also the one in our house who comforts anyone who is crying, including me, and she often tells us how lucky she is to be in our family.  Pretty cool for 7. She also has a temper like a house of fire, but that's a story for another day.

So, back to the shark-infested waters of elementary school. One morning, she seemed particularly disturbed about something that was going on. She surreptitiously snagged Big Sister's Bible, of which Little Sister has pretty much taken over the payments, and slipped it into her backpack. For some reason, I was seized by the need to take it out. The bus was feeling dangerous, somehow. I could just see someone picking on her over whipping out her Bible to deal with whatever reprobate was not acting right, in her oh-so-humble opinion. Those words mean so much to her. It made me a little sick to think of anyone criticizing her faith. She argued, but in the end, I "won." I felt bad about it all day. 

Later, we were on our way to the grocery store. Little Sister was happily reading her Bible in the backseat. When I opened the door to let her out of the van, she looked at me with a little twinkle in her eye. "Mom, look at the cover," she said. "It says 'Backpack Bible.' It wants to be in my backpack."

I've never taken it out again.

How do you encourage your child to take his problems to God? Do you need encouragement yourself?

Comments are always welcome.