Renewed Faith

A few weeks ago, my younger daughter, S, became disillusioned with her Magic 8 Ball. I found her tears both ridiculous and heart breaking because it never occurred to me that her toy carried such a burden in answering her questions and concerns. In her eight year old way, however, S has already moved past it, and now she is on to yet another big and powerful force that I don’t feel equipped to explain. God.

I brushed S’s hair after her shower the other night, and she announced happily to me, “I prayed to God in my shower tonight.”

“Really?” I said. “God was in your shower?”

“Mom,” she groaned.

“What did you pray for?” I said, combing her bangs straight. “That is, if you want to tell me.” I was kind of concerned that telling me what she prayed for was the spiritual equivalent of sharing the wish one makes before blowing out the birthday candles. If you tell someone, it might not come true.

“No, I don’t mind. I prayed that tomorrow will be a good day, and that the mean girls in school will be nice to me. And I prayed for Yoko and Moshe (our cats.) And that I get a good night’s sleep.”

“That sounds like good stuff to pray for,” I told her, secretly disappointed that she hadn’t called on God to unleash His Almighty vengeance on the girls that bully her. But, she also prayed for the cats, so that made me happy and cancelled out the other letdown.

“Yes, and I think we should pray together every night as a family,” she went on.

“Every night? Hmmm, I’ll think about it.” Because all I need now is one more thing to do every night.

“Do you think God can hear me praying?” S asked me.

“It doesn’t matter if I think He can hear you. It only matters if you think He can hear you.”

“Well, I think He can. And you know what else?” she asked me.

“No,” I said. “What else?” I was beginning to pray a little myself. Please,
God, make this end.

“I’m going to make God a Valentine’s card, and I’m going to put it on the windowsill. And if He comes and gets it, I’ll know He’s real.” She looked at me with all the pureness and innocence of the young girl she is.

"Sweetie,” I said gently. “I don’t think it works that way. God isn’t like the Tooth Fairy. He doesn’t come in the middle of the night and take stuff.”

“Mom,” S, said, laughing, “that makes God sound like a robber!”

“I suppose it does,” I said. “But I don’t want you to be disappointed when your card is still there in the morning.” It’s all I can do at this point to keep up the charades of the other imaginary characters. I don’t want to have to stand in for God too.

The next day, true to her word, she came home from school with a Valentine’s Day card she had made for God. On the outside was a picture she drew of herself, with cankles, holding God’s whatever God has instead of a hand. On the inside, she drew a picture of God with a red smear on His face, her lips big and red from where she kissed Him. And she wrote, “Happy Valentine’s Day, God, hope you make lots of prayers come true. XOXOX, Love, SB.” I loved the way she drew God’s wispy hairs and how He sort of floats above her like a cloud.

She brought it home, left it on the kitchen counter, and never mentioned it or the need for daily prayer again. Which is fine by me, because I have enough to worry about with cooking dinner and packing lunch and picking out tomorrow’s clothes and folding laundry and reading bedtime stories. I don’t have the energy to be responsible for my child’s spiritual development on a daily basis too.