Three year old theology

We had a big milestone last week. Josiah turned three. He's growing so quickly! I can hardly believe that he's been in my life for so long! It seems only a few days ago that I found out he was coming.

A few days before his birthday I was getting ready to go out for a little while by myself. I was putting on my makeup in the bathroom. He came in and sat down on the side of the bathtub.

"Mama," he said, trying to get my attention, "'splain God."

My mind was somewhere else. I struggled to pay attention to what he was saying.

"Mama, 'splain God to me."

Now there's a command! How do you "explain God" to an almost three year old? I mean, we talk about God all the time. We read the Bible together almost every day. We pray for almost every meal and often at other times during the day. We go to church and we point out blessings every chance we get.

I went with the classic Mother's answer. I said, "Go ask your Dad!"

Dan told him about how God made us and is everywhere with us. He said how God knows everything is bigger and stronger than anything we can imagine. That seemed to satisfy Josiah and he went off to play.

About a week later we had an opportunity to take Grandma Faye to a funeral home to visit with the family of a cousin who passed away. This was the first time Josiah has been to a funeral home in quite a while. We walked in and he saw the woman lying in the casket.

"What she doin' sleepin' up there?" he asked, innocently.

"She's not asleep baby, she died," I explained.

"Somebody go wake her up," he responded.

"She can't wake up, she's in heaven with God."

"God everywhere," he responded.

"Yes, God is everywhere, but he's also in heaven. She went home to heaven to be with God and Jesus," I tried to explain again.

"Where Jesus?" he asked.

This wasn't working. Grandma Faye decided to take a stab at it.

"Her spirit went home to be with the Lord," Grandma Faye explained, taking Josiah right up to the casket to look in.

"Her needs her car keys so her can drive home!" Josiah exclaimed.

At that point half the people in the room started to laugh. It seemed prudent to get him out of there as quickly as possible!

We hurried into the kitchen area where some of the family that I know were milling. Josiah was asked several times what his name was. He always responded, "I 3!"

"Your name is Josiah," I prompted.

"I not Josiah anymore, I three!"

He thought that his name was three now! :-)