I’ve been getting surprisingly challenging questions from kids recently. Last week in preschool chapel a group of kids came in obviously eager to engage me in a conversation they had been having on their own. The first kid comes up to me and says, “Sister Michelle, I have a difficult question for you.” I asked him to pause as I put on my thinking cap, and when I was ready for his difficult question he went on with, “Where do you think Heaven is?” I told him that was a difficult question and asked him if he had any thoughts about it. Before he could really follow up with me, another kid rushed up to me and said, “I have a question for you. Where does God get his power from?” Again, I told him that was a great question, and asked him if he had any thoughts about it. The first kid got my attention again and said, “I have some thoughts about my question, but I would like my classmates each to share their thoughts first.” But then a third kid came right up to my face and said, “You know what? Jesus died on the cross for our sins.”
Who says little kids don’t think about God? Who says little kids don’t have questions about life, death, good, and evil?
A few days later I was leading a Sunday school lesson on the Transfiguration story to a group of 10 kids under age 6. I talked about how the disciples went on a trip, and while they were on that trip they discovered something new about Jesus. Together we worked to unfold collapsible tunnels to make our own trip, wondering what we would discover about Jesus along the way. When it was time to go, a 2 yr. old was not quite ready to be done with her trip, and got visibly unsatisfied with the instructions to clean up. But she pulled herself together. When she got back into the sanctuary and her dad asked her what she did, she said, “we went on a twip.” Later that day I was with this same 2 yr. old in the nursery, and she said to me while cutting a coloring page, “You know, I was vewy fwustwated.” When I asked her what she was frustrated about, she said, “I wasn’t done with the twip.” It took me a second to figure out what she was referring to, but was sort of astounded that she was still thinking about this experience we had earlier that day.
Then I got an email from a mom in my congregation, sharing with me that her 3 yr. old son is really upset that he can’t get God out of his heart so he can SEE him. It is not satisfying to him to hear that he can see God in other people. He wants to see God for himself. This mom was asking me for some insight and advice on how to help him in this crisis of faith he’s having.
These three situations verify for me why early childhood faith formation is so important. Kids have questions they want space to ask. They have questions they want adults to listen to. Kids want time to process the experiences assigned to them, and sometimes get fwustwated when forced to move on too soon. And kids want to see God for themselves, not just take their parents word for it.
This season of Lent, I am going to slow down and spend more time listening to the big questions coming from young minds. Because, in the end, they’re not so different than the big questions running through my own mind.