Gospel Truths

I am learning rapidly how impressionable young children are and just how important it is to instill a love for God and the church family at a very early age. In the last few weeks Jacob has demonstrated an amazing ability to take in gospel truths, remember them, and recall them. Nothing brings me greater joy to hear him share these words of truth!

A couple weeks ago after praying at lunch, Jacob asked me why I said "Thank you God, that Jesus was on the cross." "Why was Jesus on the cross, Mommy?" It was such a treat to share the whole gospel with Jacob, from start to finish, and watch him hang on every word as though it was the most amazing story in the world (and well, let's face it, he's right! It IS the most amazing story in the world!). He can now tell us in his two year old terms that "Jesus was on the cross to take all our sins back. And now we can live in Heaven!" We're still working on defining the word sin. That's a tough one to explain on his level, but I have no doubt he will get it soon!

Last week we read the story of Jonah. It was just a one page short story. It took us less than a minute to read it. That's all we did. Then last night, after his bath, I heard him repeating the story to Chris, saying the big fish got Jonah in his teeth! Chris asked him where he learned that story and he said, Mommy taught me!

Today, I kept Jacob home from church to avoid spreading his hacking cough around his class (he really isn't sick, but it sounds terrible, and who wants to be THAT mom?). I wanted to be sure we used our time wisely, so we studied the story of Noah. Today at lunch he told Chris, "Noah heard God and talked to God. God told Noah to build an ark and put all the animals inside! Then it started to rain! Then the sun came out and they said hooray and came out of the boat. God put a rainbow in the sky!" Wow! All that from reading the story once, reviewing it, and doing a Noah's ark coloring page I printed for free off the internet!

Needless to say, I am really starting to see how impressionable his sweet little mind is right now. I think we'll be incorporating more focused Bible time into our days together, as well as a few other skills he needs to learn (number and letter identification, sorting, etc.). He is so hungry and eager now. I hope we can tuck these truths away and keep them alive and growing in the years to come!