Going to Heaven

Riding home from dinner one night, Josh grew quiet. Since this rarely happens, his silence always gets my attention immediately. I shifted around to see him better. He was staring out of the window with a frown on his face, chewing his lip, deep in thought.

“What’s up, buddy?” I asked him. My husband, Kris, who was driving, watched him in the rear-view mirror.

“Well…” (that’s the way he starts almost every sentence, and it sounds like Way-uhl…) “Well…did Granny go to heaven?” My father’s mother recently passed away, and Josh was very close to her. This had naturally begun questions about deep theology, such as did Granny’s hair go to heaven with her, did she have coffee in heaven, did she go to heaven with her dress on, and where was the door in the sky that let her in. Kris and I were prepared. So we thought.

“Yes, buddy, remember, she’s in heaven with Jesus now.”
“Well…does evuhweebody go to heaven?”

Kris cleared his throat – loudly and a little longer than necessary – and finally answered him.
“Everybody that loves and obeys Jesus goes to heaven, buddy.”
Still more silence. Josh was really thinking this one through.

“Well…my fwend Rhett…at school…he’s not going to heaven. He talks mean to me sometimes on the pwaygwound.” A gleam was forming in Josh’s eye. His voice got louder.
“I’ll tell him he’s not going to heaven, Mom, ‘cause he doesn’t obey Jesus. I’ll tell him that if he doesn’t share (shay-ur) the jeep on the pwaygwound tomorrow that he’s not going to heaven.”

This led to a very long evening. Josh came up with all sorts of lists of things that would keep someone out of heaven. According to his standards, not anyone I know will ever be there, except, of course, my Granny. Even Josh’s baby sister, Kristyn, who just turned one, will be kept out because at some point that night she took his G.I. Joe when he wasn’t looking and tried to eat it. Josh solemnly condemned her as he took the dripping wet toy out of her chubby little fingers. Kris and I looked at each other. We had to set the record straight.

“Joshy, buddy, come here a minute.” As Kris explained to Josh about how to get into heaven and what it all meant, I thought about the marvelous grace of God. That really, without the blood of Jesus, Josh’s harsh standards were just about right when it came to keeping me, or anyone else, out of heaven.

The question of Granny’s hair and clothes going with her, thankfully, was put to the side for another day.

More Josh

Tonight at the dinner table, I sternly and with authority informed Josh that, beginning tonight, once he got up from the table that was it...no more food, for the rest of the night. No more pleading for a last snack before bed (a stall tactic, I know, I see through it). He leaves his entire dinner on his plate at the table because he wants to go play, and then right before bed decides he is THEN hungry.

"This is it, Josh," I warned with as much seriousness as I could put into my voice, "you may not eat again tonight...are you sure you're done?"

I am not exaggerating this next part. Huge tears filled his eyes, and he looked at me with trembling lips. "But Mommy," he said softly, "God MADE us to eat food... He CWEE-ATED the food for us to eat. Dat's what Miss Roof (Mrs. Ruth is what he's trying to say) taught us at church...PWEASE let me eat the food that God made for me to eat, PWEASE!"

I had to get up and leave the table and let his father take over from there.

Josh's Lesson Learned

So, for those of you who don't know...the Thursday before Christmas, Josh broke his arm. Here's the scenario: I'm sitting at my desk in my classroom when the principal and the head of the daycare appear in the doorway. My first thought was, "Of course! The one time I'm sitting down & not up and teaching, the entire school administration comes for a visit." But then I saw how nervous they looked, and I got scared. They told me to hurry to the daycare office because Josh had hurt himself pretty badly.

Everything after that was a blur...I remember how white his face looked as he sat in a worker's lap, waiting for me...I remember him begging me to make his arm stop hurting..."put a cold washclof on it, Mommy...pwease give me medsin for it to stop hurting"...I remember thinking (as I ran as fast as I could across campus to get my carkeys) that of course THIS was the day I chose to wear the brand new pointed stiletto heels...there were no parking places anywhere near the ER and I had to lug a three-year old across two parking lots (again, in the stilettos)...I remember how I had to calm my rage and panic as the bored, methodical, we've-seen-it-all-and-your-case-by-far-isn't-the-worst ER employees asked me to sign in, take a seat, and wait for our turn...how I could tell how scared he was by the bright lights, unfamiliar noises, sharp smells, and sharp objects in the ER room, and how that made me choke up all the more because that showed me all the more how brave he was really being...how he buried his face in his daddy's chest when Kris got to the hospital and sat super-still after that until the doctor came in...

Once the X-Rays were finished and the cast was set, I finally got the whole story from him about what happened. Apparently, the whole preschool class was still really wound up from their Christmas party earlier that morning. Two girls in Josh's class, Alex & Bella (whom I hear about ALL the time..."Bella says I'm four, Mommy, but I'm really three, can you go up to the school and tell her she's wrong?...Alex tried to make me eat a bite of her lunch and she cried when I told her I wouldn't let her share with me") evidently were telling Josh that he didn't know how to jump right...or that he couldn't jump high enough...something like that.

So, of course...he climbed up on the highest table in the classroom and jumped. Onto the concrete floor. And tripped as he jumped. And landed on his right arm and the right side of his head. He showed them, didn't he. And when Kris asked him if he would ever jump off a table again, Josh said, "ummmmmmmmm... I tink I might later... but I'll make sure the gwound is weally soft first." Yep, lesson learned. I can't believe it's taken us three years to break something.