Bedtime Book and Letter to my Biggest Little Boy

Dave was sick with the flu, and I did our bedtime routine with both boys all week.  Rather than the usual book about bugs, animals, the rainforest, etc, this week D has been wanting to read from his storybook Bible.

My sweet boy,

     This week we have been reading your "Jesus Storybook Bible."  The stories are in the same order as an adult Bible but with some added imagery (which I find pretty but wonder if you find verbose) and a more simplified vocabulary.  The book is simplified in vocabulary only, though.  The concepts are all still there:  God, creation, sin, Satan, death, grace, miracles, our Savior, love, salvation, heaven.  No matter how simplified the words, these huge, complex, unfathomable, concepts are woven throughout.

     You have wanted to read this each night and think each "chapter" is a story, somewhat separate from the rest.  When each story alludes to "the Biggest Story" and Jesus, sometimes I think you really understand and sometimes I'm not sure.  You seldomly have questions and don't stop me while I read-unusual from our normal discussions on animals, bugs, etc where you stop to interject facts you know or ask questions (that I will undoubtedly have to answer with "I dunno, we'll have to look it up on the conmputer in the morning).  But these nights, reading these stories, you sit quietly.

     Sometimes when I look at you as I turn a page, your brow is furrowed.  Sometimes I feel the weight of the power, the magnitude of what is being conveyed and I begin to form tears.  I keep reading and you keep listening, but I wonder what you are thinking and what you are grasping.  What seeds God is planting in your little heart.  You see, He is.  As you get older, with each new year, I increasingly feel the weight of the responsibility God gave me when He entrusted me to raise you..  I am so thankful you are choosing to read God's Word.  I pray you will continue and will think about these stories long after they've been read.  I pray they will open and touch your little heart.  I pray I will seize opportunities our nightly reading may bring.

     Most of all, my sweet little boy, I pray as I read to you and tuck you into bed, you will know how deeply, vastly, and fiercelyI love you...and then know that He loves you even more.

Love,
Mommy