Pray for the children

James finished his 5th day of kindergarten today, with the expected exhaustion resulting in a tantrum of massive proportion. Thank you, Jesus, for once I responded with grace and calm. After a tussle in the shower, we curled up on my bed for a story and a snuggle.

He wanted to tell me a story (which means it didn't really happen but he has been thinking about it). In his story, a bully pushed him in the gravel of the playground. "Why do kids push other kids?" he asked at the end of the story. We had just finished a book with a word about God's protection, and he said, "It's not true. God doesn't protect me from bullies."

I listened to him spinning more of the story, and responded that God is not like a Power Ranger, blowing up bad guys, because he hopes that the bad guys will become good guys, and they can't if they are dead. He looked at me with his big brown eyes and asked, "Mom, are bombs real?"

How I wished I didn't have to answer that, but I said that they are. He began to cry. "Why do people drop bombs on each other?" I tried to explain that they do it when they are at war, and he asked, "Do they drop them on children?" "Yes, where the war is, sometimes."

Tears were really flowing by this time. "Do kids get apart from their parents in war?" "Where is the war?" "Does the Devil get in people's brains, is that why they do it?" "Why doesn't God stop them?"

By this time, my heart had broken wide open. I tried to think what to say, wanting so much to ease his obvious pain. "God doesn't stop them. He hopes they will listen to him but they don't want to. He stays close to the hurt people." Out of my mouth poured all the things that we Christians say to try to make it better when God seems so far away. Not enough to explain it away. We talked for a while longer, but finally all I could do was reassure him that there is no war in Elkhart and that I am going to stick to him like white on rice, that if he listens to God in his mind, he won't be one of the ones who hurts people. "We should pray war doesn't come here," he said.

Yes, we should, and for the children where the war is. For the children who maybe might grow up to hurt others because somehow 'the Devil got in their brains.'

God have mercy on us all. God help James, and Maia, and the children of their generation grow up to make peace, to be as passionate about nonviolence as so many are about violence.