Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Literally

The necessary background:

My parents watch our son for us while we are at work during the day. They live in the country and have many neighbors with farm animals. They frequently take walks with our son to visit the animals and they know many of them by name, including a cow named Grace.


The story:

A few days ago we were going through the normal bedtime routine for our two-year-old. One of the last things we do is say bed-time prayers. It was my husband’s turn to pray (we switch off) and he said something along the lines of, “and we thank You for Your grace…” Our son interjected, “grace go?” which is his way of asking where something is, in this case, grace. My husband stopped mid-prayer to try to explain God’s grace and how it works to forgive our sins to a toddler. Deacon listened attentively. I don’t know how my husband felt, but I felt pretty pleased with the reception he was getting and I was thinking that maybe some of it was getting through. …Until my husband finished and Deacon said, “Grace is a COW.”

And we couldn’t argue with that. Yes, yes, she is. And now he probably thinks she can forgive our sins AND chew her cud.

I cannot help but love how literal kids are.