Day 2, Questions

A few weeks ago Liam started asking me a lot of questions about dying and heaven.  Of course I gave him all of the right answers - the answers I remember my parents giving me when I would tiptoe out of my room at night distraught with worry.
But something inside me began to panic.  Somewhere along the way, without knowing it, I had lost my faith in heaven.

Not my faith in God, or Jesus, or his love for me, but heaven.  I mean it seems so scientifically improbable - this beautiful life after we leave earth.  I was suddenly terrified, but couldn't reconcile the realist shouting inside my ears.

So I began to read and research.  For the first time in my life I was an unbeliever that wanted so desperately to believe what I told my son.  I looked up first-person accounts, but at the same time was ashamed of what my lack of faith meant.  I knew that I was supposed to be blindly faithful, but at some point my disbelief had snuck up silently on me, and I felt like I just needed a little faith-boost. I prayed. I prayed hard that God would show me that heaven really did exist.  But ironically I didn't really want God to show me, if you know what I mean.

Today I am thankful for the hard questions that my little boy asks me.

I had lost my faith and didn't even realize it until he started quizzing me on whether we'd be together in the end.  I felt lost, but now I'm found.  God knew I was lost even when I was oblivious to it.

Of course I'm still delicate. I'm still reading. I'm still praying.

Because I want more than anything in the whole entire world for there to be a heaven.  I can't think of a life worth living without it.

This Christmas season I feel like those questions saved my life.

The Year of Gratitude