Preach It

I cannot give you a good explanation why I've been writing so many updates lately except that I have just really been enjoying both writing and my children. I hope you've been enjoying reading (or are at least kind enough to smile politely and nod!).

I had no intention of writing tonight, in fact I have a steamy, hot date with the laundry. It's waiting to be folded and, because I'm not in an exclusive relationship with my laundry, after the laundry date is finished and those irritating baby socks are paired I have another meet up scheduled with the dishwasher and the sink. If things get boring after that and I still have some scoot left in me I could always go dancing with my old flame, the broom. It's a busy life I lead!

Instead of dating tonight, I found myself frantically typing what was coming from my kiddo's mouths in hopes that I could share it with you and it would bring you a smile as well.

A few years ago Mia got a green miniature Bible from a Gideon who came onto our college campus. (I'm thinking he may have been a little misdirected, as our students typically own multiple Bibles. It's not the typical college campus. Mia was thrilled to accept his gift, however.)

Mia loves that Bible and has often preached from it. Maggie hasn't ever given us a sermon, however, so tonight I was tickled when she told me to listen up and opened the pages ceremoniously.

"This is my God talk," Maggie began. The fact that the Bible she was using has pieces missing from the cover because she used it as a teething toy was not important to her.

"God, help us make joyful noises and keep us safe from the bad animals. Amen," Maggie pronounced.

I waited. She took a deep breath and I readied myself for round two of instruction. She surprised me when she began to sing.

"Acha, catcho and am says. Eh, tidoban," she belted out. (I'm spelling as phonetically accurately as I can. It was definitely a song of syllables, perhaps African in origin?) Then the finale: "Ah say, vavula, say say!"

I was scrambling to get all of that written down as best I could. I was speechless and could only clap in appreciation of her insight.

Mia grabbed the Bible from Maggie and announced she was going to talk now. She took a deep breath but Isaiah jumped in front of her, beginning to quote Psalm 23.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," Isaiah said.

"Be quiet – that's rude!" Mia chastised him. "It's my turn to talk about God!"

Mia started again:

"The Lord God is my Shepherd. I love the Lord. But the most one that I love is God."

Isaiah kept quoting the Psalm until he got to the end. Mia kept shushing him. Then she continued:

"The Lord of God's Shepherd," then she, too, began to preach via song (much more melodic than Maggie's), "I believe God, I do not believe anybody else but I believe my mom and dad."

The singing stopped and she finished in a scary voice, "But! There is another man. He is bad! He is the king and we shouldn't pray to him!"

She stopped, fixed me with an eagle eye as my thumbs worked frantically to get all of this down on the Blackberry to email later, and said, "'Katie H.' is at the end. Mom, can you spell Leland?"

And that was the end of the revival and thus, my evening story. Goodnight.

(I honestly don't know where they come up with this stuff. I promise, we don't have TBN on in the house non-stop, we don't preach non-stop. They just really like to talk about God. And tell us to be quiet so they can perform!)