So as the kids and I were going through the channels to see if anything was on worth watching this morning (our PBS station is kaput and the other one is dead, and the digital tuner gets such weak signal that we only see about five seconds before it cuts out), we saw a religious channel advertising a show about what happens after you die, and it talked about hell with fiery visuals filling the screen.
Concerned about what my kids might think after seeing and hearing this, and perhaps understanding only enough to be disturbed, I asked them if they knew how we can escape hell (I think those two words were the title of the show being advertised). They looked at me for a moment, and then Paul said, "Go to heaven?"
I said, "Yes, that's right. We can trust Jesus to save us, and then we don't have to go to hell. We can be in Heaven with God if we believe that Jesus died for us."
Ruth promptly answered, with a slightly worried look, "I believe
all that stuff." I don't think she understands what it means, so we talked about that everyone does bad things. They had no problem relating to that. I said that God doesn't like sin, or doing bad things, so much that he can't even be around it. But when Jesus died for us, and when we trust him, the Bible says that he covers us, and covers the sin, and makes us holy. Paul said, "I think I already did that." I smiled and told him yes. But that being saved isn't the end, exactly. I said, "I remember hearing in church that grace should be changing your life." (Thank you, Stan - this phrase has stuck with me for almost twenty years now.) "We are saved by grace - that's what the Bible tells us. 'We are saved by grace, not by works....' so no matter what we do, it's not good enough to be saved." Here Paul's face started to look worried again, but his smile at the next phrase was so sweet to me: "It is the gift of God."
And then grace keeps helping us change after we're saved.
It was good to have that teachable moment. I feel like we don't have a lot of them, or that I'm not looking for them actively enough because I'm so caught up in surviving this time of Bruce-in-school-kids-out-of-school. But I'm learning that I can take moments that I would formerly simply avoid or try to ignore like Mrs. General of "prunes and prism" -- I can take those uncomfortable or disturbing moments and use them.
Another memory springs up, given that framework.
When we were grocery shopping the other day we were approached by a lady who asked for money, and said it was for groceries. We offered to buy her some (thanks for that example, Dad), but that turned in to a bit of a longish story, the short answer of which was "no thank you."
So we went on in to the store, and I thought I might as well find a few things to give her if she was still there when we came out. I looked for soft things like bananas, remembering a previous experience when I had bought granola bars (protein, non-perishable, very portable) to share with a panhandler and he laughed kindly at me and said, "I cain't eat them thangs," pointing to his few teeth. The lady we had seen this time had almost no teeth, just bluish roots showing in her gums, hence bananas, a soft roll, some fruit cups.
Paul said, "If we get some change after we buy our food, we should give it to that lady with the purple hat." I said, "The reason I wanted to give her food instead of money is that sometimes people who ask for money want it to buy things that aren't good for them." Paul remembered that she had been holding a lit cigarette when she came up to us. I agreed that cigarettes are things that are bad for you.
In the event, she was not there when we came out, though we did drive through the parking lot to look. When we got home and unpacked, a neighbor boy came over to play with Paul. A truck went down our street, and the neighbor asked, "You want to know something he does that's bad?" I said, "Is it going to make me sad to know it?" That response didn't seem to compute to this kid - why would knowing something about someone else make me sad? Anyway, I agreed to hear it. He said, "He smokes weed."
Paul looked totally confused, since his frame of reference for the word weed is something you pull out of the garden. I explained that it was a kind of drug that isn't good for you. The kid went on to say, "And I seen him do this:" miming injecting something into his arm. Paul was still confused. I said, "He was using a needle to put drugs into his veins. That's bad. Using drugs is really bad for your body." Paul wanted to know why someone would do that.
The neighbor kid piped up with, "Because it makes them feel good." I agreed, "Yes, it does make them feel good at first, but after a while, it doesn't even make you feel good anymore, you just have to use it so you don't feel bad. I don't want to use anything that after a while, if I
don't use it, I feel really bad." Even as I said it, I felt a little hypocritical about coffee - even using decaf, I can still feel a difference when I somehow miss a morning. Regardless, the trap-of-addiction argument didn't seem to carry a lot of emotional weight with either boy.
I went on to say to Paul, knowing that his friend would listen, "Daddy told me that some kinds of drugs make your teeth start to fall out. Remember the lady in the parking lot who asked us for money, and she didn't have very much teeth? Sometimes if you use drugs your teeth fall out, and you can't work because you can't think well, and then you don't have money. And sometimes drugs can make people act crazy and do bad things. I'm never going to use drugs, and you should never use drugs."
So those were the moments about being charitable but prudent, and being wary of drugs.
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