Intense Conversations with Preschoolers

On the way to school yesterday, the children and I had a great conversation! Chase is the only one who went to school because the others were sick. Thomas started throwing up Saturday night and Mary Frances started on Sunday! They are all fine now, but it made for a great conversation!

I'm not sure how we got started, but we were talking about the devil. I think the kids may have asked what he looked like - no telling where that came from with Halloween right around the corner! Anyway, I proceeded to tell them a few truths about the devil - mainly that the devil doesn't like churches. So, I told them that the devil isn't happy with mommy and daddy because we are starting a new church and telling more people about God. I told them that the devil was trying to make us think about other things and not about our new church this weekend. So, that is why they were sick, we had a car accident that rendered are car useless, and several other more minor things.

Now, if you aren't sure about this whole God thing, this may seem really strange to you, but I can assure you that this is how the devil works, and I try to teach the children in as simple terms as I can about it. I did assure them that God is bigger and stronger than the devil and we had no reason to be concerned as long as we didn't let the devil win. So, we decided to not get a new car until this week, not worry about the kids being sick, but continue on, and to trust that God would work out all the details!

At "Church Planters Boot Camp" in May, Jim Griffith said to us, "If you don't believe in the devil, just plant a church!" We have certain people designated to pray for our family every day for this very reason!

So, after this deep conversation, we moved to cancer. Mary Frances was talking about a friend of Jessie's who just died of cancer recently, Mr. Pete. I told her that is why Grandmary (Ray C.'s mom) died also. So, we talked about how the doctors can usually make you better when you are sick, but sometimes they can't make you better if you have cancer.

We talked about eating healthy, and how fruits and vegetables make the cells in our bodies strong so when we catch germs from other people our healthy cells actually fight the germs and tell them to go away. Yes, I do normally explain things this much. It makes more sense to know why we do things rather than just "because I said so." However, "because I said so" really works well when you are tired of explaining! Anyway, they loved the visual of the healthy cells and germs duking it out!

(I know cancer is not "caught" like other illnesses, but I still believe healthy cells fight off most cancers. So, eat healthy!)

I love having these kind of conversations with the kids! It is so much fun to hear their comments and questions! I especially love it when they say something a week or month later proving to me that they really were listening! It is true that they are sponges!