The mind of my 9 yr. old son is awesome. After having two girls, his simple and carefree way of thinking is predictable and refreshing yet every now and then, a rare moment will take my breath away. Yesterday was one of those moments.
"When will you die?", he asked as we were watering the flowers. Good grief, where did that come from?! After all, we were talking about how fast he could run just seconds before. Death wasn't a subject that we had talked about yet. I collected my thoughts and very confidently replied that I had no idea when I would die. Only God knows that day, just like he knows the number of hairs on my head. He knows the day we are born and the day we will die which makes it easy to not worry about because God's timing is perfect. I looked over and immediately knew that we weren't done.
"But will it be before me?" Again I replied that I had no idea because it wasn't up to me. Preparing myself for a serious conversation, I put down the hose and sat down on the ground in front of him. I reminded Lucas that death for people who believe in Jesus is different than death for people who aren't Christians. He assured me that he "got that part" and knew that we would all live forever in heaven. Then he asked if he would die before me. At this point, I prayed silently for the right words because this was going deeper than I anticipated. I heard insecurity behind his questions and was concerned about what had him focused on this. It was a deeper place for him than I was used to and along with meeting his emotional needs, I wanted to make the most of this teachable moment.
Before I could get the words out, he told me that he knew. He knew that I didn't know. He knew that it wasn't up to me. He knew that whoever died first was going to need wings in heaven. And money. Wings to fly back to earth to go to the store. Money to buy chocolate. Apparently, the castles that we will live in are made out of chocolate. His is going to need more chocolate than others because he'll be eating out of his. Apparently, he just wanted me to be prepared. If I get there first, I can get his castle ready for him. If he gets there first, he can make sure he has enough chocolate in case I borrow some when I get there. I'll still need wings though because I'll need to replace what I use otherwise it will be stealing. And with that, he took off running to the treehouse with a bug catcher in tow.
Definitely a breathtaking moment - just not so predictable. Listening to complaints about the ants on a limb, I smiled in wonder over the simplicity of bugs in the treehouse and apparently, chocolate in heaven.
Posted via web from gracegig
