My Toddler’s Easter (and every day after)

On Saturday, Eliot asked to read the story of Jesus and the tomb from his children’s bible.

Then we kept reading about the ascension, about the Holy Spirit, back to the day Jesus welcomed the children.

I think when our bible translations feel stale to us, we shouldn’t always reach for the next Message Remix or NLT.

The simplicity of that children’s bible fed me in draughts, enough to last me through Easter weekend and beyond.

Eliot is in the “Why mom? Why dad?” stage of toddlerhood, but for some reason, I wasn’t prepared for this.

“But what is heaven? Can we drive there?”

“Why can’t I see God?”

Every new inquiry left me teary-eyed and ummmmm-ing for a long time.

These aren’t answers you can rehearse well for, because no big questions are.

The greater glory of life for me is finding some of these answers alongside Eliot and Isaiah, asking with them, Yes, who is God? And how does His love manifest itself in us?

I told him that Jesus gave us this really kind gift of Spirit, that we’re never alone.

I’m afraid of my answers, because I don’t want them to be too small.

All I can really say right now is, “Eliot, He is just everything, and He’s just so good.”

Something awakened in my boy over Holy Week, and something beckons Him closer in after Easter, after seeing the cross outside our church covered in palm branches and white blooms for Easter morning.

Here is the reality we must live for ourselves and for our children:

Easter isn’t over. Easter lives on, forever echoing Hallelujah! and Kingdom come!

And something holy in Eliot gets that already, already in his three year old soul.

If we forget how risen He is, we forget how alive we are.

And I can’t think of living without seeing the beautiful, curious joy slide across my son’s face as he realizes that the walking and breathing Jesus quit breathing for a few days, just to wake up again and pour glory back into our little human hearts, both his and mine.