Recently, Ana’s decided that she wants to forego children’s church in order to listen to Wes’s sermons. 

I suspect that the reason for this initially was because he planned on using an illustration that involved a giant fork, and who wants to miss out on a giant fork, right?  Now, though, she wants to stay because she actually seems to get a lot out of the sermons. 

I get the privilege of sitting with her, answering her questions, and observing just what she’s figuring out.  It’s always fun to see just what she writes down in her notes (yes, she takes notes) and what it reveals about what she hears and how she interprets it.  I’ve been meaning to write down some of her observations in the meantime.

A few weeks ago, Wes made this statement — “Salvation belongs to God, not to you.”  I thought this was a statement worth remembering, and sure enough, Ana began writing it down as soon as Wes said it.  I wrote it down myself, certain that writing out the word “salvation” would take her long enough that she wouldn’t catch the rest of it, intending on letting her copy from my notes if she forgot the words long after Wes had moved on.  She didn’t need my help, though, as she showed me what she had written.  Salvation, with an arrow pointing to the word God, and the word “you” crossed out completely. 

Wow.  I think she understood that pretty well, huh?

Before I could marvel over this too much, Wes told us, “If you don’t get anything else today, GET THIS,” then began making his main point.  Ana got busy writing, and when I looked over her shoulder, I saw that she had written, “GET THIS.”

Now, I’m not sure she could tell you what “THIS” is, but still.

Another week, Wes made the statement that Jesus was who He said He was.  Ana leaned over to me and said, “We know that’s true.  Because Jesus?  Said that ‘I AM.'”  I thought about this for a second and whispered back, “He did say that.  And who else said that in the Bible, way back at the beginning?”  Ana answered, “God did.”  And I said, “So, what can we conclude if those two statements are true?”  Ana, after a moment of thought, “Jesus is God.  And He was ‘I AM’ back then, too.” 

Well, yeah.  But I didn’t know that six year olds were capable of this kind of logic.  Honestly.

And on Easter Sunday, when Wes read from Ephesians 2, Ana leaned over to me and whispered, “I am dead, but Jesus will make me alive.”  Then, she drew a picture of herself, frowning, labeling it as “slaviry,” then a picture of herself, smiling, labeling it as “free.”  “What made the difference?,” I asked her, pointing to the two Anas.  “Jesus did,” she said, very simply. 

Lest you think she’s a miniature theologian and that she gets it right all the time, she did draw me a picture when Wes was talking about how Jesus spoke Scripture.  She drew Jesus (and labeled Him as such, which is the only way I could tell who He was) and drew an arrow from Him to a drawing of the Bible (again, labelled as such).  Jesus loves the Bible.  Awesome.  Then, she drew a picture of me (labelled as such) and drew an arrow from me to a drawing of a can of Diet Dr. Pepper.

That’s right — Jesus loves the Word of God like Mommy loves Diet Dr. Pepper.

Hmm.  Maybe she does get it right all the time.  Shame…