From Chris Nelson, talking to his young son Joe about his other son Andrew, who has very significant disabilities:
“Daddy?”
“Yeah, Joe?”
“Why did God make Andrew’s brain work different?”
That profound question was lobbed my way by a four-year-old theologian who happens to be my middle son, as I sought to shake the cobwebs from my Monday-morning-mind while cleaning up the lower half of my 10-year-old son after a particularly explosive situation.
Joe is getting to the age where he understands that Andrew isn’t like “normal” kids. He’s different. God made him that way. And God is good. And Joe wants to know why God, a good God, made Andrew the way that He did.
“Well, Joe, the Bible teaches us that God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.”
That’s the first thought that popped into my mind.
“And I don’t know all the answers, but sometimes God does things to teach us things about ourselves, to show us our sin.”
Perhaps it was poetic that I was cleaning up feces at the time.
“What’s sin?”
“Sin is when we do and think and say bad things. Those things come out of the bad in our hearts. Sin is always against God. But you know what? God loves us and sent Jesus to pay for our sin so we could be forgiven and we could be God’s friend.”
“Oh. Daddy?”
“Yeah, Joe?”
“Do we have any yogurt?”
“Yeah, Joe.”
May God keep raising up dads like this!
