Not for sissies: On teaching violent love to children

"Mommy, it's so sad."

"Yes, it is sad honey. And it hurt really bad, too. But He did it because He loves us."

I think, a few kids ago, this kind of conversation with children might have been impossible for me. I probably would have been the one sitting quietly with a kid on my lap, letting daddy talk about the hard stuff, while I sat there wishing I could shield my babies from all of this.

(Read more:  Is Easter too violent for kids?)

What changed?
Well, Aggie got sick. And I tasted some real suffering. I held her, blue-lipped. And I considered the possibility of a sister, left without a sister. I considered myself, standing at a graveside, knowing in my bones that there is something horribly, violently wrong with this world.

Violence has no place around my babies.
Nor does death.
Nor does sin.
And yet, I sin against them, and they sin against each other, every day.

We live in a broken world.

Yet the broken God-man... He gives us hope.

So we talk about Him. We talk about His great love for us, which we see in His healing and His teaching, but most of all, we see in His death on the cross.


Jesus is not just like us. 
He loves us with a fierce love. 
A violent love.
He loves us to death.

But we preach Jesus crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. 1 Cor 1:23

One morning, my three-year-old took the cross off the table.
Then, he laid on the kitchen floor with Jesus, like this:

I tried to put the cross away.

"I want Jesus!" he protested. 

May you, too, find rest 

in the shadow of His cross today.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, 

that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

 but in order that the world might be saved through him. 

John 3:16-17

Holy Week Recommended Reading:

Death: Friend, Foe, Fair or Finality?

Hunger Games and the Happy Exchange
He's Still Working

(originally published 4/16/12)

Talking about the scary stuff

How do you handle the "scary stuff" in your home?

We've all had to answer that question this week, haven't we?
In our home, we are honest with our kids. Evil is horrible, and they have seen me cry over it. We have prayed together, and we have had many hard discussions.

That said, we also do not allow the news to color their minds with all kinds of scary images, and with the world's perspective. They do not know the shooter's name, but they do know about Victoria.

I'd rather them not know about any of this scary stuff, to be honest. But this life is full of it. We don't dare pretend that it isn't.  We call evil evil, and then we point them to Him who has overcome.

Sometimes we point with tears, and hands that shake, but still, we point.

And He comforts and upholds us, as He has promised.

From Russel D. Moore...

Too many of our Bible study and discipleship materials (whether for Baptist Vacation Bible School or Roman Catholic confirmation preparation or what have you) de-claw the Bible. They excise all the snakes and dragons and wildness. In so doing, they reduce the Bible to a set of ethical guidelines and a text on how gentle and kind Jesus is.

The problem is, our kids know there are monsters out there. God put that awareness in them. They're looking for a sheep-herding dragon-slayer, for the One who can put all the wild things under his feet. Until we can address, with gospel honesty, what scares our children—and ourselves—we can never get to the joyous wild rumpus of gospel freedom.

Read the entire article here

You may also enjoy Not for Sissies: On teaching violent love to children

How do you handle the "scary stuff" in your home?

I'd love to hear how you handle these things with your children.