A Three Year Old and God

One of the joys of parenting is to watch your children develop spiritually. Most of the time, it comes in glimpses, because you never really know what they are thinking. Cate is 3 and 1/2 and already there are several entertaining stories about her perception of God.

Cate received a toddler Bible from my grandmother some time ago. She has several Bibles, but this one has been very age appropriate for her. For a while, we had to read from this Bible every night, and we always had to read the story of David and Goliath. One night, she wanted to "read it," and so we found the page and she recited it basically word for word. Of course, I was blown away and called Lauren in for her to repeat it. After seeing that we were thrilled by this, she had to "read it" every night for a while. Now she has it down pat, and she can also do the same with Jonah and can pretty consistently name 10 of the 12 Disciples (by pointing to their cartoon image). And all of this is without us pushing her at all. She just seems to have an interest in it.

Anyway, a transcript (of how it is actually written, not exactly how it is read) for those interested in following along....

The enemies of God wanted to fight the Israelites. A giant soldier named Goliath yelled "Bring out your best soldier to fight me!" The Israelites were afraid. They did not want to fight the giant.

"I am not afraid to fight the giant," said a young boy named David. The king said, "You can't fight the giant, you're too small." David said, "God will be with me."

David picked up some stones. "One, two, three, four, five," he said. The giant laughed at David. David said, "I'm not scared, God will help me fight you."

David put the stones in the sling, and ran toward the giant. Then he let the stones fly. The stone hit Goliath in the forehead, and he fell to the ground. The Israelites won!