Church Can Still Be Cool

We have been going through an interesting “phase” with our 5 year old lately.  She is totally consumed with fear.  Some of it is funny like when she was playing with her little brother and he cracked his knuckles and her eyes filled with tears as she was just CERTAIN that his fingers were going to fall off.  We are happy to report that brother still has all 5 digits on both hands, by the way.

But then there are other manifestations that break my heart.  Just this morning, she had mom “check her heart” two different times just to make sure it was still beating.  The rest of the morning was filled with questions about little kids dying, why hospitals are scary and our impending mortality.  Ok, she never said, “impending mortality”, she’s only five.  But that was certainly the spirit of the conversation.  All I know is that my 5 year old is totally consumed with a fear of dying.  And it breaks my heart because there are times when, in my estimation, she misses life.

As i have spent the morning processing, and I am afraid that I have to confess that perhaps her struggle is a lesson in just how near the tree apples really do fall.  I wouldn’t say that I am afraid of death in the same sense that she is.  In fact, to be honest, I think of it very little.  But I think I am so afraid that something I do or say will lead to or expose some sort of inner, spiritual deadness and so I work and work not live, but simply to avoid death.

And so I miss living.

Habakkuk 1:5 tells us, “Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”  If God were to do something amazing in this age (and, for the record, I believe He is), would I even notice it?  Or am I too caught up in avoiding my own spiritual death that I miss the move of the One who is bringing life?

This morning I have realized that the best way I can help my beautiful little 5 year old is to let her see her father cast off all fear of death, spiritual or otherwise, and embrace this moment with all I’ve got; to let her see her dad avail himself fully to what his heavenly Dad is doing in this moment; to show her that while the truth of scripture demands that “the wages of sin is death”, the beauty of the heart of our Father counters with, “but the fee gift of God is eternal life.”

And even a scary hospital can’t stop that.