Saturday, August 20, 2011

Awkward Bible Stories

Now that Anna is at the ripe old age of 3 she is really starting to understand what's going on.  Her life is no longer as foggy as it once was.  She's putting the pieces of the puzzle of life together.  So this has had an effect on what we say around her, what we say to her, who we want her to be around, what we want her to see and listen to, etc, etc.  But I never thought that it would be awkward to read the Bible with her.  But it is!  Oh my gosh!  There aren't hardly any G rated stories in there! 

We recently got the Jesus Storybook Bible and I LOVE it.  Lots of people have recommended it to us and we finally got around to getting one at a Border's (that's going out of business and everything is on sale!).  Actually, my mom was with us and she offered to get it for us.  Bonus!  Thanks mom!



Anyways, back to the point... So...I was reading the story of Abraham and Isaac to Anna the other night before bed.  You know...the story where God asked Abraham to basically kill his son and Abraham was like ok and then God stopped him at the last minute and didn't make him do it?  Ummm ya...that's awkward to talk about with a 3 year old.  The way the Jesus Storybook Bible "spun" it was focusing on the fact that God always provides what we need exactly when we need it (ie. the ram for the sacrifice, and Jesus).  Now I say "spun", but really the reason why I love this children's Bible is because they don't water down the stories and make them something they are not.  It told the story straight up and then added their "spin," which is always to point the children to Jesus.

After we read a Bible story with Anna we like to ask her "Now what was this story about?" to help her remember and retain.  I was praying she didn't ask any questions!  How do you explain this story to a 3 year old?!  Luckily, she didn't ask any questions and I hurriedly closed the Bible and put her to bed. 

Am I the only one that feels this way??  I'm not going to stop reading the Bible to my children, but my goodness, I'm imagining some crazy awkward conversations in the near future about murder, incest, suicide, polygamy, adultery, and who knows what else.  Yikes!  I guess it's better she hears about those things from her parents first....still not looking forward to it though!

Please tell me I'm not alone!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I totally know how you feel and love that book. I got really aggrivated at some of our other "kid's Bibles" that added things or watered down things so I ended up having to change the stories to make them more accurate when I read them.