"Thank you, Father"

Apologies. I have probably now officially lost the rest of the readership that was not already lost on my vacation blogging hiatus a few weeks back, but it's 30 degrees and I have a garden and a 2 year old that loves to be outside (and is potting training, but that's another post altogether), so who can blame me.

Marc suggested I post a thought that I had while telling Madeline her bedtime Bible story. We tell Madeline a Bible story (and a "story elk", someday I'll explain that one) every night -- the same story for one week. For a while we would have a saying for her to say at some point in the story (like then Samson said "Oh no! My hair!"; King Nebuchadnezzar said "Hey, there's four guys in there"; and then your run of the mill Moses said "Let my people go!"), but we've been a bit slack on the sayings lately.

I've found that telling the Bible stories in a way that Madeline will grasp the concept and the purpose has made me see the stories in a whole new way. Like the other day I told her the story again about the loaves and fishes. I had always thought that the point of the stories was the miracle that the few loaves and fishes were made into enough to feed the thousands of people there that day. But then I thought, what if the point we're supposed to get from it is that Jesus said "thank you, father" (or whatever he actually said -- that was Madeline's phrase) over the meager offering, and his thankfulness for that little bit is what made it enough. I'm sure there's all sorts of things to get out of it, but I'd never thought of that before.