Monday, March 30, 2009

from the mouth of babes


This morning I sat Juden on my lap to play him a song. My kids love music. They want it on all the time and we often play this game where we have to name all the instruments we hear and they are surprisingly accurate most of the time. Juden has pretty broad tastes in music and likes to pretend he is the conductor when classical is on. So I scooped him onto my lap and told him to listen. I told him the man singing was blind, to which he replied,"What is blind?" I told him that his eyes didn't work and that it was always dark to him. I hadn't really thought about this aspect of sharing the song, but his expression immediately fell and he seemed really sad and said, "Oh, the poor man, why did God give him eyes that don't work?" Wow, we mommies are supposed to have the answers. I thought a minute about how to explain something so difficult and said that there are lots of things that are broken in the world and lots of sick or otherwise impaired people, and that made Jesus sad too and that's why He came and made a way to set things right. Still a rather weighty issue for a five year-old mind. I could see that he was still sad, so I told him to see how the man loved to sing and that he wasn't sad even though his eyes didn't work. I told him that we would close our eyes while we listened to see how he felt. He scrunched up his little face and sqeezed his eyes shut tight and we listened...
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I looked at him with his eyes still shut, rocking his head slowly to the music until the song ended. His face lit up a little and he said,"Ohh, so since he can't see any pretty things, he just sings'em."
Simply put.
I love being his mommy and seeing things the way he sees them.

6 comments:

Lauren said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lauren said...

wow, linda...what a bright, intuitive and wonderful boy you've got! <3

Holloway Clan said...

Thank you for sharing this. I thought you'd be interested to know that as I started to play the music, my two small boys came running from opposite corners of the house to listen, irresistibly drawn by the lovely strains of music, and miraculously a 4 and 2 year-old, who normally never stay still for more than 10 seconds, stood riveted for the duration.
Becky

Mom said...

Really nice moment, Linda. I wish I had your memory and could remember so many more special moments and words you and your sisters and brothers gave me not so very long ago.

Susan said...

Linda,

Juden has such a kind heart. I think that was one of the sweetest things I've ever heard. And I love this picture of him. I pray God will allow him to always have such a gentle sensitivity. Love you, Mimi

Jennifer Kring said...

i love this little boys heart so very much. I just think there is no one like him and I can't get enough of his sweet spirit.

Nice work on fielding such a tricky issue btw... kids really do ask the hardest questions, eh...