Keeping me on my toes

I can't tell you how many times a day Dale asks the definition of a word, usually a word that's just been used in conversation. Sometimes it's a word he already knows what means, but I think he likes hearing it confirmed. Other times it is a new word for him.

Tonight, as we finished up his bed-time prayers, he picked out a word from my prayer.

"What does 'trust' mean?"

As an answer, I told him to, "stand up."

He did.

I scooped him up and cradled him in my arms. "I am not going to drop you. Do you think I am going to drop you?"

(Giggling) "No."

To make things even more interesting, I swung him upside down, holding him with his knees against my chest. "I am not going to drop you. Do you think I am going to drop you?"

(Laughing) "No."

I swung him up and deposited him on his bed, loving my parenting cleverness. "Trust means that you believe that someone is going to take care of you. We trust that God is going to take care of us. Do you know how we know?"

"How?"

"Because He told us in the Bible!"

"Oh yeah..." The light of recognition flickers on in his eyes. Ahh... teaching moment accomplished...or so I thought:
"...what verse?"

Uhhhh.....

ummmm.....

"Trust in the Lord..." (Prov. 3:5&6) pops in my head. It's been one of his memory verses.

But I want a verse that says, "I will take care of you".

And I can't think of a single one.

I tell him to wait for me there in his bed and I'll be right back. I find my Bible, and Greg, and start scrambling for a verse!

I know there is something I'm not thinking of (just like that person whose name you knew until someone asked you so-and-so's name... and then you can't think of it for the LIFE of you ... or is that just me?). But to get back to him before he loses interest in the conversation, I open up to Isaiah 41:10 and the passages about the birds and the lilies and 'ask, seek, knock' in Matthew 6 & 7.

Dale meets me in the hallway as I'm heading back to his room. "Did you find a verse yet?!?"

So much for waiting for me where I asked him to. But oh if we all had that eagerness for God's Word!

We read and discussed our verses and I tucked him in. Thank goodness for the many questions of children to prevent us from becoming slack!

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. For I the LORD thy God will hold they right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee."
Isaiah 41:10,13