Wednesday, April 11, 2007

She Also Believes in the Hanukkah Armadillo

Eeeaarrrly Sunday morning, H woke me up: “Mom, I want to go see what the Easter Bunny brought!”

Oops. The Easter Bunny had completely forgotten to visit, though (s)he had a drawerful of Easter goodies. (But none of that grass stuff. I hate cleaning that up.)

I stalled: “It’s really early—why don’t you go back to bed for a little while, and I’ll make sure he came.”

I grabbed a robe, stuffed the bag of goodies underneath, and snuck past her room into the kitchen where I dumped the stuff onto the bar. We’d even forgotten to set out their baskets, so I tiptoed back into H’s room.

“The Easter Bunny came, but we forgot to set out our baskets so he left everything on the bar. Give me your basket and I’ll get S’s too, and I’ll put the stuff in your baskets for you.”

Quietly, quietly I put the goodies in their baskets. Back to H’s room:

“I’ve got the camera ready, come see what the Easter Bunny brought!”

She never once questioned why I made her wait. The faith of a child: patient, solid, unbending. What does it do to a child’s faith when we let them believe so strongly in the Easter Bunny, Santa, the tooth fairy; and then even after they come to know the “truth” about those imaginary heroes, we still expect them to believe in an invisible God, a Savior they can’t see. Are we making a huge mistake? How do we convince little children, big children, teenagers, and adults that even though Santa is a myth, Jesus is real?

But, oh, that we all could have the faith of a child.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love this post, L! (Do I get points knowing the title is a "Friends" reference?)

Leigh said...

Thanks--and yes, 10 points for you! I should set up a contest to see who can guess the show or movie that each title references.