Lately, my daughter has been asking questions. Lots of ‘em. Not just easy ones. Ones that require me to think.hard. Questions like:

Does everyone in the world laugh the same way? Flamingos aren’t born pink, right? Does a giraffe make sounds? Why did Moses break the Ten Commandments? Why do we bury bodies? Do you know anyone who has died not because they were old? Can I touch the sky?

Wow. She’s 6. Again…wow.

In the case of the Moses question – it was the middle of the night. She woke me up to ask (seriously?!?). I decided she wouldn’t remember in the morning anyway, so my response was *kiss*kiss* and “go back to bed.” Fail. (maybe?)

But when she asked me about death and burying our loved ones – I had to give her an answer. Thankfully, we’ve openly discussed death. More so, we’ve discussed the importance of knowing Jesus so that when one dies they get to spend an eternity in heaven. So this answer came more easily than I expected: well when someone dies and their spirit goes to heaven, we’ve got to do something with the body, right? Too little information? (possibly?)

And when she questioned whether she could touch the sky, I told her to put her hands in the air and then informed her she was, in fact, touching the sky at that very moment. She ran away giggling and satisfied with the answer. (True or untrue?)

Sometimes when our young ones ask complicated questions, in our effort to be fully honest, and a really good parent, we offer complicated answers. I just don’t think they need the unabridged answers all the time. Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t actively parent, but maybe…just maybe….sometimes they just need to know you’re listening. Sometimes they don’t need the biblical basis for what we do. They just need to know there is, in fact, a reason, whether they get it or not. And let’s be honest, sometimes you just need to teach them to find the answer for themselves {My dad’s phrase growing up: Look it up!} So she had the privilege of researching flamingos and giraffes and learned the answers to her questions! {DO giraffes make sounds? and ARE flamingos born pink?? I know the answers…do you?} And sometimes they don’t necessarily need an answer! Sometimes we teach more by turning the question on them and asking them what they think. Let them wonder about this great world God created for us to live in! Let their creative and imaginative minds think it through and consider what could be. Don’t forget, after all, that God works in mysterious ways!

So…have you had any tough questions lately? What’d you say??

Last week we worked hard to complete our 10 Days of Thanks activities. We still needed to write a letter to send to a serviceman overseas, prepare a bag of school and personal grooming supplies for an orphanage in Latin America, and send bibles to Bibles for Joplin. So we set out to get it all done in one big trip.

First, we worked on our letter to our serviceman. We were particularly excited about this, because we discovered after the fact that he had recently written an article in our denominational magazine.

He’s a career military chaplain and a friend of our family. {You can read his article, Seconds from Death, by clicking on the magazine pic above}. So we had fun writing to him!

Then we went to the store with our list of supplies for the orphanage project and bought everything we needed and packed that up to be mailed.

And then we bought some great compact Bibles to donate to Bibles for Joplin.

I can’t wait to deliver them to my friend Stacy when I see her in a couple weeks. {hear that, Stacy?? You’ll see me soooooon! } And then we trotted off to the post office with our stash, waited patiently in the endless line, and finally got our packages on the way!

AAAaaaaand then discovered I had left the key in the van. Which was locked. So we hung out with this nice postal worker for the next hour while awaiting rescue. Oy vey…

Um, did I say these projects for our 10 Days of Thanks were going to happen on 10 consecutive days? I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I’m also pretty sure I didn’t expect it to get drawn out quite this long. First, we had a friend who’s life went into an unexpected tailspin 3 weeks ago. I told you a little about Christina & Steve, and their son Blake, and how my daughter wanted to sew a blanket for their boy. So we set aside some days to focus on the blanket. It’s still not done, but it’s going to be CUTE!

Then, when we set about to donate food to a local food pantry, we ran into problems. Like, over and over again. We have, to date, been to 3 different food pantries, only to find them non-existent, or not open during the times they said they’d be there and available to take donations. What a frustrating experience that has turned out to be! This food is beginning to take over the back of my van, I tell ya!

So technically we should be done our service projects. But in reality, we’ve still got 3 more to complete. I’ve actually already gotten them all set out and ready to complete. Now if there are no more bumps in the road, maybe we’ll be done with them by the end of this week. Maybe. Hopefully. {sigh}

What’s the lesson here? I keep reminding *myself* of Romans 2:7, which says

Yesterday’s activity as part of our 10 Days of Thanks was to write a letter to a missionary family serving overseas. We picked a family we happen to know personally so I was able to get pictures and a personal letter from the family. When I was interacting with the family, they said their children were missing fruit roll-ups and asked if we could send some. So first we found the country they are serving in on our globe.

I can’t really tell you where they are. And we wrote a letter to the kids…

 printed some pics of our family, and colored some pictures too.

Tucked them all in an envelope with as many fruit roll ups as would fit and sent it on its merry way!

I’m very grateful to so many families that answer the call of God to go places so far removed from the familiar and comfortable. Until the whole world knows…that is our desire too.

Today’s activity: letter to a military family!

Today’s activity as part of our 10 Days of Thanks was *supposed* to be a visit to a local nursing home to visit with the elderly. And we might still do that. But after a friend of ours had a sudden medical diagnosis for their 3-year-old son, Blake, we felt the need to change our plans. If you don’t know the story of Blake, you can read a post from his mom Christina on her blog here. He was rushed to the hospital one week ago today, and is now out of the ICU and able to have visitors. We’ve been making meals for the family this last week already, but tonight we decided to go together as a family to take the meal. Before we left, my daughter drew him a get-well card.

And we took it, plus a couple of handmade crafts, and our meal to the hospital.

Do you remember why I wanted to do this project with my kids in the first place? I wanted my kids to have a heart of gratitude and to develop a desire to show that it tangible ways. Hence, we’ve called this a service project. As we were leaving the hospital, my oldest daughter started talking about how much she wanted to do something more for this family. (YES!) What could she do, she asked? She noticed that Blake only had one little kid blanket in his hospital room. Did I think she could make him a blanket to have at the hospital? (SHE GETS IT!!!) Of course, honey, I said. We’ll go right out tomorrow to  find some material for you to do that. {thankful sigh}

Check out this great article titled It’s All About Family, written by Dick Hardy. He’s the founder of The Hardy Group (www.thehardygroup.org), an Executive Consulting firm for senior pastors. Dick has served as a staff pastor at 2 mega churches, and as vice-president of a bible college. It’s a great article – written with the husband in mind – but just as applicational to us pastor’s wives, too.

Today’s activity as part of our 10 Days of Thanks was making thank you cards for the Pastors at our church. Even though we’re ministers ourselves, I want to make sure my kids value the work and sacrifice of other ministers and their families. Check them out!

Today we donated diapers to the Pregnancy Decision Health Center in Columbus as our third project for our 10 Days of Thanks. It was a wonderful feeling to take my children to such an under-appreciated ministry and do a small part to support them!!

Today was the second day of our 10 Days of Thanks service project. We made cookies to take to the fire station around the corner. It was loads of fun! And even though they didn’t turn out all perfect and pretty, the kids sure enjoyed this activity.

We worked hard on cooking, and decorating four dozen cookies.

Then we made a thank you card to take with the cookies.

Look at that cute card!

And took them to the fire station! Chief Davidson was so kind to the kids when we brought the cookies.

This makes me excited to do our next activity…

Well, today is the beginning of our 10 Days of Thanks Project. We were originally planning to bake cookies to take to our local fire station, but with one kiddo sick, it didn’t seem like a good idea. Determined not to be de-railed, I went with Plan B. This plan didn’t require me to leave the house at all. In fact, we’d already begun this particular project: our Thankfulness Jar:

I couldn’t help but sneak a peek. One of my boy’s:

I’m glad he already loves to dream big! And my younger daughter’s:

Such a tender-heart. And my older daughter’s:

YAY! I’m thankful for my family too. And, of course, I’ve had some entries:

What? I’m seriously thankful about sushi!! It’s amazing. And other-worldly. And I love it. {he-he-he}