Day 24: Of Pathways, Pitfalls and Alligators

My little storyteller.

The other day I overheard Emma in the living room with her friend. 

 

“Let’s play family home evening,” she said, “You sit over there and I’ll tell you a story.”

As she began, I could just see Emma standing in front of the chalkboard easel we'd used the night before. “This is a story about you. You are on this path and you come to a pit.  This pit is death!”  She put heavy emphasis on the word death and then paused.

“But, Jesus built a bridge over the pit.  How does that make you feel?”

I smiled as I listened to her.  I had told the story the night before, using the analogy of the pathway back to heaven with two pits representing death and sin to teach the children about the atonement of Christ.  I was feeling a little smug - what a good teacher I was.  She’d really taken in the lesson. Then all smugness melted away as I listened to rest of the story.

“This is the next pit,” I heard her say and imagined her pointing to the second pit drawn on the chalkboard.   

“You fall into this one.  At the bottom is an alligator.  It has big teeth and chomps you up!”

“My turn,” I heard Emma’s little friend say and story time was over.

I laughed to myself, first of all for how the story ended and second of all for feeling smug.  Teaching children about Jesus Christ and his mission is a process.  Even once they know all the right answers they don’t have the experience to know what it means for them personally.

We start when children are young and teach them again and again.  We hope that when they really need it they will remember those lessons.  They will know where to turn for help.  It’s 2 Nephi 25:26 all over again.  “We talk of Christ . . . that our children may know to what source they may look to for a remission of their sins.”  Emma may not have gotten the whole idea this time, but I think she understands, in some small way, that Jesus Christ did something for her that she couldn’t do for herself.  That’s enough for now.  Understanding what Christ’s life and mission means to us is a life long process, a pathway we travel, a pathway with pitfalls, hopefully ones without alligators at the bottom to chomp us up.