Getting goosebumps!

Today was a such a fab day! Well, when I talk about day I'm really talking about a very special 10 minutes!

Our morning was very normal getting through our normal tasks of mental maths, spelling, reading and grammar work. S also then attempted a maths assessment which I guessed he would do badly at! I knew fine well he wouldn't bother trying to work out any of the questions properly and indeed that's what happened. I told him this at the end and he'll be repeating it again properly on Monday! Tough love hasn't given up yet ;)

Our reading book just now is one of the Oxford Reading Tree books, "The Will of the People" and is set in Ancient Greece in 454BC so has introduced the whole topic of Greek Myths and Legends. I had to study this when I was 12 when part of our curriculum was to learn Greek (quite incredible to think that now!) and actually really enjoyed it. To start off looking further into it I got a DVD on Odysseus which introduces some of the more famous stories in cartoon form.

So, this afternoon we started to watch. We have in other work been looking at the old and new covenants in the Bible and looking at the tabernacle and the temple so I was a little concerned introducing gods and goddesses would have confused S. As we watched I gave small commentaries to help S to follow who was who. After a couple of the mini stories S asked to pause the DVD so that he could speak to me. So I did. Then completely out of the blue S asked me, "What happened to all the people who died before Jesus died on the cross?" This was then followed by a conversation including questions from him such as, "Why did God make us so that we could sin?", "Why did God not just stop us from sinning?", "Why did God not just kill us?", "So, if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned then would we not have pain?", "Why do we die?" and then some more... What a conversation! It was amazing! What makes it even more amazing is the fact that for the last few weeks I have been asking some of these very questions myself! I have been a Christian for about 25 years, I have studied theology at uni and read many many books but some of these questions I have never found answers for and recently they have come back to really intrigue me! Various life experiences recently have led me to really want to delve deeper into my faith and try to understand the God I love more. For some, I think they think I'm never going to find answers and that to ask some of these questions is futile and that I should be satisfied to accept I will never find answers but I just can't do that! Of course there are some questions I will never know answers to such as, "when will Jesus return" or "what will I be doing in heaven?" But I really do think that we have been given minds that can grasp some of the other questions if we are willing to look.

So, I've been reading lots, listening to podcasts, discussing with friends and compiling a list of more questions as they come up! I've been really enjoying a book by Norman Geisler called, "If God, Why Evil?". It has been fantastic and has totally scratched where I itch! It has answered so many of my questions and has made me think. Then today S's questions came! If he had asked me these questions even one week ago I would have been stumped and would have had to say, "I don't know" over and over again! Please don't get me wrong, I don't at all think its wrong to say I don't know to any questions a child asks and I don't for one minute think I have worked everything out! My understanding of these things is totally in its infancy but it was so so exciting to share with S that I had been asking these very same questions and to explain some of the answers. So we chatted about free will and what that means and how we are free to love but free to reject God too. We discussed a Father's love for his children and how that works out in allowing us freedom. We discussed original sin and whether or not we would have done the same. We discussed so much even to the level of would there be electricity in heaven so that we wouldn't have to charge the tablet to keep playing minecraft!!! (That was a reminder it was a child I was discussing with!!!) what a chat! For me it immediately gave me the assurance that I hadn't been wasting my time looking at all these questions! For a child on the autistic spectrum it was more than amazing. Here we were speaking about things unseen and his eye contact was amazing! When we talked about meeting God for the first time he gave the smile he gives only when he is genuinely excited and happy about something. That's when we talked about goosebumps! Admittedly explaining goosebumps to somebody with sensory perception disorder is maybe not ideal - he maybe thinks that's torture!!! But I have goosebumps even thinking about our chat. To see the penny drop when learning about a maths concept or an English concept is one thing but to share the moment when spiritual eyes are opened with my child is just amazing! What a gift!

So, a long post but for me a very special post and one I wanted to share. Next week might be grim and moments like this don't come along everyday so I thought it was worth recording and sharing.