A letter to my five year old who has been asking very hard questions lately

Dear Malachi..
You are blowing me away with your questions lately.

You usually ask them at night, right when we are tucking you in to bed, right when Mommy wants to go downstairs and drink hot tea and read a book.

But then, as I'm closing your bedroom door, you say,

God doesn't save us.
If he saved us, then Buddy wouldn't have died.


He didn't save Nana from dying.
So God doesn't save us.

I told you you're asking a question that many people ask their whole lives: if God is good, why do bad things happen?


I told you I didn't have an answer.
That we don't know why Nana had to die or Buddy had to die.

Then the next night you asked me if God likes it when animals kill things.

You said, if it is bad to be mean and to kill, then is it okay for tigers to kill?

I tried to explain to you that it's different when animals kill; they're not doing it to be bad; they're doing it because they have to eat.

That we're the only things that can choose to do good things or to do bad things.

But then you asked me about sharks, and you had a good point there Malachi.

I think sharks sometimes choose to do bad things on purpose, even when they're not hungry, so you got me there bud.

Then a couple nights later, you said I can't hear God.
I try, but I can't hear him with my ears.

I told you to listen with your heart, and you said, it's just bones under there.

Sometimes you say that Satan is winning.  I do things I don't want to do, and I can't be a good boy even if if I try.


And that it's so hard to be good. 
So, so, hard.

I told you that Paul in the Bible says the same thing, that he does the things he doesn't want to do, and doesn't do what he wants to do, so you are in good company.

I used to tell you: you are a good boy no matter what. 
That, you are always good inside of you but sometimes you just made bad choices.

But then I realized that I am giving you a message of striving- that you can either strive your whole life to try and be good and feel like a failure, or you can really convince yourself you are good, which means you will never know what grace is, and you won't be able to relate to anybody else because you'll just be feeling better than them.


So now I try to tell you that you are right; you can't be a good boy. 
And this is why we need Jesus so badly.

And this helps me to remember to pray out loud about my own need for Jesus, for grace- so that I can have His power to help me be a good mommy, to be patient, to be kind, because I just can't do it on my own.

When I mess up, which is a lot, I try to say, Jesus, please help me not to get frustrated. I just can't do it without you, and then I ask you to pray for me too because we need to help each other because we're a family.

You tell me a lot lately that you don't want to die.
That you don't want to ever be separated from me and Daddy.

I tell you I don't want to die either.
That I pray to live a long long life, but that God knows what we need, and we just have to trust him.

And when we do die, at least we will all be together in heaven.

And then you said, and this was the most painful thing to hear Malachi,

It's my body, I can do what I want.
I don't want to do this life anymore.
If God wants me to die, I just want to die.
This life has too much scary stuff.
Like dinosaurs and tigers and lions.
There's just too much.

When you said that, I didn't know what to say to you, so I asked Daddy to come back in the room so we could pray with you together, and then I listened to Daddy talk to you and I prayed that God would give him wisdom to know what to say, and this is what your Daddy told you:

He told you about Jonah, about how Jonah didn't want to obey God, he didn't want to go on the journey God had for him to go on, and he tried to run away.
But God rescued Jonah by letting him be swallowed by the whale, and then he picked Jonah up from where the whale puked him out on the beach, and he helped him have the strength to go on his journey.

And you said, What's my journey?

and Daddy said,

we don't know. 
But we will walk it with you.