I reflect now and then on how different life with children is in comparison to the days before Brandon and I were parents— there is a slight odor of urine we can’t seem to get rid of, laundry is NEVER done, we seem to be in a never ending cycle of preparing meals, and CRUMBS… crumbs are everywhere.
We have taken a variety of approaches to eliminating the ever presents reality of crumbs— we try to only eat at the table, when we let the kids have a snack elsewhere we remind them to eat carefully, when crumbs inevitably are tracked all over the house we sweep them up… we went through a phase of owning a robotic vacuum (thats for another post). I even find myself determining my shopping list based on how “crumby” certain items are (those green NutriGrain bars, ugh!). Still they seem to show themselves in the most surprising places— couch cushions, car seats, the corner of the shoe closest… we even found a half eaten granola bar on the floor behind the toilet (boys can be gross).
Kennedy (our one year old) is now very mobile— she walks/runs everywhere, climbs on anything she can lift her little body on top of, hides under blankets, tears cushions off of the couch, and leaves a trail of crumbs everywhere she goes. And if she isn’t leaving crumbs, she is finding them… and EATING them. I can sweep the floor a few times a day and she will still discover the lone surviving cheerio (of petrified piece of cooked broccoli) that had found refuge under the stuffed dog, on the third shelf in the toys room. Kennedy seems to think it is funny. She hides it and then, like a squirrel, returns to her bounty a few days later to collect. I think she intentionally seeks out Brandon or I before shoving the discarded crumb in her mouth, so that as she gobbles it she can see the look of terror in our eyes from across the room.
Okay I am getting a bit melodramatic, but I hope it conveys my own on going struggle with crumbs. I see them and I cringe, and like laundry it seems that within seconds of taking care of them, more appears out of no where.
The other day Levi asked for a snack as I headed upstairs to put Kennedy down for a nap. I told him he could grab something from the pantry. When I came back down, the evidence of his snacking was all over the couch. It seemed as if at least half of his granola bar had exploded all over the couch. I sat down next to him and asked him what we should do about the mess.
“What mess?!?”
He climbed off the couch, crumbs falling to the ground all around him, turned back to his seat and suddenly his eyes were opened to the mess. But instead of sweeping them into his hand to get them to the trash, he starts eating them, “mmm, I was still hungry.” Oh to be a three year old.
I helped Levi clean up the rest of the crumbs and we played until Kennedy woke up. She and Levi sat on the rug and played with toys while I got her some food. As I came into the room, I noticed her chomping away on something. A quick sweep of her mouth revealed that one of the crumbs that escaped Levi’s lap earlier that morning had been discovered (and ingested) by Kennedy. It is never ending.
For some reason, that day the crumbs caused me to pause. I thought about how we teach our children about God. I realized that just like crumbs, we are leaving bits and pieces of our understanding about who God is for our kids to pick up. They are getting crumbs here and there that either validate or contradict the words we say about our faith. It can be challenging at times to carve out time for intentional conversations and teaching moments about who God is and who we are as God’s people, but the way we live our lives leave faith crumbs all over for them to discover and pick up.
The way we interact with strangers in the grocery stores shows if we take Jesus’ command to love our neighbor to heart. The way we deal with conflict in our relationships shows them what grace and forgiveness truly are. The way we respond to them when they are at their worst conveys the strength of unconditional love. And when we fail, and our actions don’t align with our beliefs, the way we apologize and try to change moving forward also shows reconciliation and what true repentance looks like.
I am a pastor, I have a degree in “God stuff,” I engage in theological reflection daily— but the reality is that my children are probably ingesting more and learning more through my faith crumbs than they do from the Sunday School lessons, sermons, and intentional conversations that I plan. My life is the greatest testimony of who I believe God to be and who I believe we are in relationship to God. That doesn’t mean that intentional conversations aren’t important— they absolutely are! They help to teach the vocabulary of how we talk about our faith and help to give words to our doubts and our epiphanies. But I hope that we become more aware of how our children are learning about who God is from us even when we aren’t being intentional.
You are a great teacher, you are a great theologian, you are a great vessel of God’s love. May we celebrate more of the crumbs!
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