Out of the Mouths of Babes

Today, a regular trip to run errands yielded the deepest conversation I've ever had with Jonah.

We stopped at Kohls to get some play clothes for the kids and Jonah ended up sitting on a bench with an elderly man, who had a walking cane. Jonah later found the head of a clothes hanger laying on the floor and decided it was the perfect walking cane for his little stuffed puppy (who came with us to Kohls). Jonah told me "puppy has sore knees".

In the car, as we were leaving the parking lot, I remembered how I've been wanting to take the kids to a local nursing home. Just to let them visit and smile at some of the residents, and maybe take flowers to hand out, or something like that. The walking cane gave me a perfect chance to find out how Jonah would feel about being around the elderly. The conversation went a bit like this...

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Mama: Hey Jonah, do you remember visiting Dubbie in the nursing home?

Jonah: Yeah. Is Dubbie still der?!

Mama: No, buddy. Dubbie went home with Jesus. He's in heaven now.

Jonah: Oh nooooo! You mean we can't see Dubbie ANYMORE?!

Mama: No, we can't see him, but Dubbie's very happy with Jesus. He's not sick anymore and he gets to play and have fun all day. Do you think he's happy?

Jonah: Yeah. But maybe we will miss him. Dat makes me really SAD! Is Nannie at da nursin' home?

Mama: No, buddy. Nannie's at her house in Texas.

Jonah: Mmmkay. Dat's good. Can we go to da nursin' home?

Mama: In Texas? No. That's too far away right now. But there are some nursing homes here in our town we could go to. Maybe we could go visit some people there and cheer them up. You could make them smile.

Jonah: Let's go!!! I want to go to da nursin' home right now!!! I'll tell 'em my name is Jonah!

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I think I have my answer to the nursing home question! I was amazed at how Jonah steered the conversation right where I needed to go and then showed 100% enthusiasm at the prospect of visiting.

About 2 minutes of silence passed after that conversation, and then Jonah asked me if Jesus was is in his heart. I know he was wondering if Jesus was in heaven with Dubbie, how could he be in somebody's heart too. I told him, if he asked Jesus to be in his heart, then Jesus was in his heart. He asked me, "what does Jesus do in there?", and I said, he makes you all clean and helps you when you ask him to. He then said, "My stomach is dirty. I ate too many blackberries. Can Jesus clean that too?"