Rainbows and Wild Hair

This is what my 5 year old daughter asked me today. Well, really, she told me this is what she thought. At first, I tried to assure her that this is his way of telling us he loves us. That he wasn't apologizing for anything. She kept saying, well, I think he's telling us Sorry for sending you Thunderstorms........Here's how it all went down.......

On the way to the Sitter's this afternoon, S (my daughter) said, - Why didn't God send us a rainbow today? It was raining, but he didn't send us a rainbow. So I told her that sometimes we can't see the rainbow, because other people are getting a chance to look at it somewhere else. She said - Well, God should tell us sorry for sending the rain and the storms. Her 7 yr. old brother M interjected that God doesn't send rainbows to tell us he's sorry. He sends them to promise he won't ever send a flood again. But my daughter, who doesn't like storms or rain, said - He should tell us he's sorry. And I think he sent the rainbow after the flood to tell the people he was sorry too. M kept trying to correct her, but this stopped me in my tracks. Because I wondered how long it would be before they remembered the images on the computer of the flooding in Japan. About that time, one of them said, - Mom, God said he wouldn't ever send a flood again, but he sent one to Japan! To them, what they saw on YouTube, looked like the whole earth to them.

This is the problem I have with Children's Bible Stories. My daughter has in her mind that God sends bad weather to mess us up. She gets mad at him. She wonders why he would do something like that. No wonder she thinks he owes her an apology. Then there's Abraham obeying God and preparing to slaughter his own son! This is not a children's story! How scary to think that God would even ASK Abraham to do something like that. What about Jonah? God seems to test and punish in really sick ways. And my baby girl is picking up on the fact that if you don't obey this God, then there will be severe consequences. That might work for some people, but I'm afraid it is stressing her out and scaring her off. Frankly, I'm a little scared off myself.

I've been wondering lately if God is anything at all like I have thought he is in the past. What in my childhood and growing up years led me to believe that I will never be able to please him, or that others will always have a closer relationship than I will with him.......I was taught over and over again that God loves us, has a plan for us, and these cute little stories and songs should make me believe that. But in order to be loved by God, I had to act and look a certain way, or I could not be a part of his family. Really??? Is that REALLY how he is? I'll love you if you make all the right decisions and do the right thing. Oh, and by the way, I want you to look like this, act like this, and talk about me like this, or people can't tell you're a part of my family. I can't love you unless you can love me back the way I want you to.

Hmm, I'm still pondering this one. There are an awful lot of people out there who don't look like me, don't talk like me, don't live like me. I tell them that God loves them and wants to change who they are. HUH? Why does he want to change what he created? He wants to live IN them, not change them. He created them in his own image. This tells me he loves each of us the way we are. So why do we make people feel like they have to change their personalities and  appearances to be a better person? We ask them to do that for us, to make us feel better. This isn't for God. I think God likes all the crazy, off the wall people that he created out of his own creativity. I like the way off the wall people make me feel like it's okay to challenge what I have always known to be the normal, preferred way of doing life.

If you see me with Fire Red Hair that has been cut in an Edgy Style, it's because I don't think God really cares what my hair looks like, or if it IS associated with Wild, Pushing the Limit kind of Punks. :) It's time to express the creative, wild child inside of me, and quit worrying about how it will make others around me look. It might help me connect better on some level with those with Hot Pink Hair.  ;)