“Will God and Jesus ever die?”
“When will Jesus come back to earth?”
“Why did God make flowers?”
“Is everyone in heaven a grown-up?”
“Why can’t people come back from heaven?”
Eight years ago, I opened a Word document to record the questions my kids asked me about God and faith. The above list is a sample. Four years ago, I began blogging about their questions. My youngest child is now the age that my oldest was when I started, so I’m having some of the same conversations again. In some ways, it gets easier. In other ways, it never does.
Those who extol the simple faith of a child may not have spent enough time with one. Child-like faith is layered, complicated and evolving—like faith at any age. Children ask questions that are real, persistent, piercing and insightful. Often, I admit that I just don’t know the answers, but that we’ll look for them together. I’m learning to say less and to listen more.
Now when I think about children’s faith questions (or any questions, really), I think about the unspoken questions behind them—questions about safety, worth and longing, questions that even grownups have. Will I be safe? Will someone care for me? Am I worthy of love? So many other concerns exist under our faith questions.
As with all types of development, things beyond our control can impact faith development. I once served on the board of a children’s residential treatment center, where staff used a trauma-informed approach. Children come in with what often look like “bad behaviors” but are almost always the result of unspeakable trauma: violence in the home, sexual abuse, neglect and more. Instead of saying to a child, “What’s wrong with you?” staff members at that treatment center say, “What happened to you?” From there, healing begins.
We can use this approach in healing ourselves too. When we connect to our inner child, we may find some woundedness. Researchers have learned that when we go through adverse childhood experiences, we continue to carry these in our bodies. The effects can be deeper than we realize, impacting us emotionally, socially, spiritually, and even physically, into adulthood. What’s more, the adaptive behaviors we learned as children, behaviors that may have served us at that time, don’t serve us anymore.
Scripture alludes to childhood (but not necessarily children’s questions) on a few occasions, including at least twice in Mark’s gospel. In Mark 9, Jesus places a child in front of the disciples, who have just been arguing about who among them is greatest. Jesus tells them to welcome children. In Mark 10, the disciples (who clearly didn’t listen in the last chapter) are stopping people from bringing their children to Jesus for a blessing. But Jesus tells them to bring the children to him. He blesses them and adds that those who don’t receive the kingdom of God as a child will never enter it (10:15).
Sometimes these scenes can have a “Precious Moments” feel to them. However, children in antiquity weren’t viewed the way we see children now. None of these parents were running their children to piano lessons or signing them up for academic clubs to get ahead (see my weekly planner). Back then, children were of lower status. Children were property. Their purpose was to work, to marry, and to care for older family members as they aged. Jesus’ embrace and welcome of children would have been stunning—in line with Jesus’ embrace of “the least of these.” It serves as a reminder that God is experienced not in power, but in weakness.
Parenting and caregiving are hard tasks. We face difficult questions and complex issues. Faith intermingles with doubt. We trip over our own guilt and worry. Some days we get it right. We have days when we blow it. Our kids are complex individuals; so are we.
So much of my early parenting years were about trying to get it right: the right answers, the right choices, the right attitude, even the right outfits. I still try to do a good job. (I don’t care about the outfits anymore.) But now I think more in terms of repair than the crushing expectation of getting everything right the first time.
Child clinical psychologist Becky Kennedy’s book Good Inside is based on the premise that kids and caregivers are “good inside.” Our kids want to do what is good. We can help them by focusing on connection and understanding their needs, while still setting boundaries, Kennedy writes. When we mess up—because we absolutely will—we can forgive ourselves and repair the relationship. According to Kennedy, it’s never too late to become the person and/or parent you want to be. We are good inside. If that’s not a theology of grace, I don’t know what is.
We can trust in God’s promise to be present in our moments of faith, as well as in our questions and doubts. We can trust that God is there for our kids in such times too.