I keep a note in my phone to track the hilarious, poetic, and poignant things my daughter has said since she began putting words into sentences. The latest addition might be my favorite.
It can be tricky taking my daughter to church when my own faith journey has been forged by doubt. She’s absorbing Sunday School scriptures sometimes as story and sometimes as fact, and we have to untangle the difference a lot at home. I try to do so without trampling on the tenderness of her nascent belief. And that’s just it. You tell her something and she believes. I don’t go to church because I’m a believer. I’ll never be a ‘true believer.’ I go to church because I want to believe in something—something bigger than myself, and because I see evidence of it in the communion of the gathering, and because Jesus was the exemplar of love. There are many other reasons I go, but that’s basically it. And I like the music, so that made this conversation all the more delightful. This is verbatim:
ZELDA: Mommy, did you know that I can make anything come true?
ME: Really? How do you do that?
ZELDA: I just close my eyes and ask God for something and then it’ll come true.
ME: Like a prayer?
ZELDA: Yeah. If you ask, God will make it come true.
ME: Well I don’t know about that Zelda. A lot of people ask God for things all the time that never come true. Where was God then?
ZELDA: (Pause) He was probably listening to music.
your prayers will be answered following these sick beatz