This is a true story. You may not believe it but this is my son, an extraordinary boy of 5. As usual he did not want to go to sleep. He hopped up on a stool and was trying to get to an icon we have put on his bedroom wall. It is a classic western icon of Jesus pointing to his sacred heart (it's a classic rendition with crown, thorns, flames and blood). George tells me he wants one. He further explains that he wants a real one. So I tell him to get into bed, I pull down the icon and explain to him, in very abbreviated form, Genesis, original sin, Calvary, the three days in Hell, the freeing of the imprisoned spirits, the Resurrection, and how Jesus' sacrifice completed a very long, complicated plan to redeem mankind from that original sin.
Wide eyed, he took it all in very calmly and repeated that he wanted his own heart like the flaming heart of Jesus. I told him that only God could give him that and that he should pray and talk to him frequently. Only God could do it. He seemed content and ready to go to sleep.
I found out a few minutes later that his window was open and went to close it. He turned, informed that he had decided, and said that he wanted to help God so that men would know Him. Then he turned and seemed to go back to sleep.
It was a false sense of finality. In the middle of writing this, he burst into my home office and informed me that we needed to house for God, informing me, in his most serious five year old manner, that there needed to be a place with doors and a lock that no man could come in but that God could come in because he would have the key.
We still haven't got him to sleep yet, but I'll close this note here about this extraordinary episode. God is still alive in the hearts of little boys. With all the scary, mad things going on in these times, it is a true note of hope.
Posted by TMLutas at October 25, 2004 09:22 PM