Last night at dinner Elli was in a very talkative mood. She told us about her whole day. She reminded us that if the power goes out, the tv will be broken and we will have to light a candle. She provided a running commentary on the contents of her stew.

In between conversations with each other, Stacy and I would ask Elli questions to spur her thinking. At one point, the subject of Christmas came up and Elli mentioned baby Jesus. She has been really interested in our Nativity this year, probably because it is at her eye-level and very attractive. Whenever she is over at the window seat playing with it, we talk about who the different characters are just to increase her awareness of what is going on in the story.

As Elli starts talking about Christmas and Jesus last night, Stacy asked her who Jesus' mommy was. For the first time that evening, Elli is silent. Just blinking her eyes and racking her brain for the right answer. There comes a point where it's obvious she isn't going to get the answer to this one without phoning a friend, so Stacy bails her out and reminds her that Jesus' mommy is none other than Mary.

Now, what you need to understand about the brain of a three year old is that everything is connected. You say one word and it triggers this mechanism where they search for any possible bit of knowledge that relates to what they have just heard. So after Stacy sheds that bit of enlightenment on Elli, she young lady breaks out in song.

"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb..."

My first instinct was to jump in and straighten the kid's theology out right away. You gotta nip these things in the bud before the kid starts thinking that Jesus drives a sleigh, you know? But just as I was about to say something, I was the beneficiary of a moment of enlightenment.

The lamb and perfection images are actually in the Bible in reference to Jesus.

So maybe the kid was brushing up on her theology when daddy wasn't looking.

Renew and Restore