Jesus Is True...

...That is what Madalyn will tell you if you ask her what she learned in her class at church on Sunday. I asked later Sunday afternoon, not hoping for much of a response, and those three little words caught me completely off guard.

She was wearing a sticker on her dress when she came out that said "The Bible Is True," so I am pretty sure she was spot on with remembering what she had learned.

I so want to bring her up to know how BIG God is, that He can be trusted, that He is good and made her very, very good too. I want her to know what I am still trying to learn: that He loves us and that even when things go horribly awry, when situations are hurtful or devastating, when we are let way, way down, it is really, on a very eternal, deep level, o-kay. We are loved and protected. There is always, always reason to hope and reason for joy.

And sometimes we have to throw a big, old-fashioned fit and get it out of our system when we are disappointed. That's o-kay because it is honest. It is raw hurt and disappointment expressed.

He can take it. He expects it.

I want her to know Him. But on a primal level, God is showing me that is largely His job. My relationship with Jesus has always been intensely personal; it's about me and Him. It has been since my childhood. I pray He gives Dan and I the words, the actions, the love to show Maddy truth. But in the end, it is He who will whisper His words, uttered uniquely for her ears, spoken in the way she can best understand...

Jesus is true.