willing

The girls decided to take on something for Lent this year.  We have done things as a family before but this was the first time they each decided on something for themselves.  Lily decided to read the Bible each night before bed and settled on Luke.  And the girl has stuck to it even though most nights she has told me after reading, "I didn't really get it."  The last few nights she has been so sleepy I have read aloud to her and not only does she seem to understand it a bit better (it probably helps that I edit and change some words) but it's been a sweet little Lenten practice to read just a short story about this somewhat strange and mysterious Savior, Jesus, over my daughter.

I don't pretend to understand all of the Bible.  I don't give easy answers to the girls when they ask me hard questions about God, Jesus, Christianity.  There is simply too much mystery and too many unknowns.  So we talk about faith and hard questions and what it looks like to follow Jesus without a lot of concrete answers.  A few nights ago Jesus cast out a demon, "an impure spirit."  (Try explaining that one to an eight-year-old.)  After I finished Lily thanked me for reading and said, "I didn't understand that story very much."  You and me both, sweetheart.

A couple of nights later I read to her in Luke 5 about Jesus healing a man of leprosy.  The man fell with his face to the ground before Jesus and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."  And with a voice suddenly full of emotion I read over her, "Jesus reached out his hand, touched the man and said, "I am willing.  Be clean."

Read aloud, one can more easily dream about this story and the compassion in Jesus' voice, his posture towards suffering.  The desire to reach out, to heal, to redeem.  I don't even know why this struck me so but I told Lily that right there in that small story is the heart of Jesus: he is willing and with a touch he can heal the worst of things.  And in that moment, that truth was enough.

"I understood that story, Mama," Lily said.  "Me too," I told her.  And kissed her goodnight.