“Mommy, How Did You Get That Scar?”

Are you one of those mommas who likes to have all of your children’s life-changing moments of discovering their Savior all neatly and perfectly planned out?

I am.

If my kids are going to fall in love with Jesus, I just always assumed that it would happen during one of our “Dried Bean Cross Crafts” or while we were memorizing Scripture to the tune of Barney.

Fortunately, my kids are humans and not robots, so they don’t always hardly ever respond in the way that I scripted them to.

In fact, the Lord has revealed Himself to my children in much more creative and dazzling ways than anything I could have ever cooked up!  He has used completely spontaneous and unexpected moments to bring about the most precious of conversations between my sons and me.

Basically, when it comes to our children being introduced to Jesus and His marvelous love…bean crosses are good, but real life is better.

—— “Mommy, how did you get that scar?” ——

That question was asked by my 5-year-old son, Rudy, recently.  It is the question that sparked a really neat – wonderful, actually – dialogue between us.

It all started out as a fun way to pass time as we were waiting in the car to pick up a friend.  All the usual desperate attempts to keep the kids entertained had already been exhausted, so when Rudy hopped in the front seat next to me and began to ask about the story behind each of my (apparently very noticeable) scars, I couldn’t have jumped on board more enthusiastically.

So the stories began…

Scar #1:  Vicious dalmatian dog attacked me.
Scar #2:  Rollerblades-meet-pinestraw fiasco.
Scar #3:  Cheese grated a chunk out of my thumb.
…

And the trip down Injury Lane continued.  He loved it, by the way.  Every single detail of every single story.

After all of the scars had been found and examined and questioned, he stilled my heart a little bit when he asked me, “Mommy, are you going to have all of those scars in Heaven?”

All of my Salvation Preparedness Regimen died right there.  Thankfully.  This was a wonderful, beautiful, and honest question asked by my very un-robot-like child.  He wanted to know about his mommy’s scars, and his mommy’s scars got him thinking about Heaven.

Hallelujah.

We talked…my tears flowed and his mind absorbed.  And after a while, you know where we landed?  On this marvelous Truth:  That maybe we will still carry our scars around in Heaven.  Because Jesus will still carry His.

Jesus’ scars.  Exactly where we needed to land!  And we were led there not by an anxious mommy’s plan or regimen, but by the creative prodding of the Holy Spirit on a precious little boy.

So now, every time my Rudy looks at my scars or his own inevitable ones, Jesus and His cross will be there.  What a work the Lord is doing through the simple question of a child!

Mommas, the Lord has created our children with minds that see the world differently than we do…minds that are quite often much more sensitive to God’s nearness than ours are.  Knowing that, I want to create an environment for my children that is an incubator for constant and consistent wonder at who Jesus is!  I want to pray for more questions and opportunities for questions!

I want to see Jesus in the details, the way my son now sees Him in my scars.

Praise God that He does not leave our mothering to our own devices.  He sees our attempts, loves us all the same, and does what we can never do…changes our children’s hearts.

Related posts that you might enjoy:

• So That My Children Won’t Despair Of Scripture
• As He Fathers Us So Should We Mother Them, Part One
• As He Fathers Us So Should We Mother Them, Part Two

Photo credits:  here

Lauren Souers

Hi, my name is Lauren. I am the wife of one fine man and the momma of four (huge) young children – three boys and one princess! I love all of them. I mostly clean up messes and feed people all day, and it’s really fun to write about it. Jesus is the rock of my family – we love and serve a mighty King! I hope you leave here full of hope that “tired” can be good.