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“Daddy, how fat is the Bible?”

By February 21, 2014 No Comments

I knew we were in trouble when I heard her question. It was dinner, we were all together at home eating the assortment of baked chicken, spaghetti, raw carrots and ranch sauce, pizza, sweet potato, ketchup, and asparagus my wife and I put together.

The question is no reflection on her, I wouldn’t use a blog post like that.  I just thought, “Oh no.  That is the most boring question I’ve ever heard about God.  What am I teaching my kids about God anyway?”

Back up a few minutes.  We’re “plating” – ha!  I like that, like we’re on Chopped or something.  Anyway, Jill and I are plating the food.  And I think, “Talk to them about doing this diaper drive thing.  Read something from Luke and tie it in.”  Plating, plating.  Somewhere between the ranch and the pizza I decided, “Naw, I haven’t studied that passage good enough, I need to be sure before I say anything.  Need to do it right.”  I had been reading Luke some mornings and loved the fire under Luke for writing his letter to just one person.

Okay, now speed up a few frames.  We’re seated, prayed, and eating.  One of my girls got into an argument with a sister over looking at her Bible so I let her look at mine.  Right as her pepperoni stained fingers opened it to Luke where my place marker was she said, “Daddy, read us this.”  Talk about God putting me on the spot.  I gulped.  I just put it out there with Zach hearing from Gabe about a son and a promise.  (this would be where the boring question came from another daughter).  I could see we were in trouble.  I won’t go into it but felt responsible for the boring question – like, what kind of faith am I handing down to my family anyway?  Really, the most exciting thing is ‘how fat is the Bible’?  Ugh.

I tried to remember that Zach lost his voice as I regained mine and told my family, “We’re going to do something really fun!  Girls, did you know that some families where we live don’t even have the money to buy diapers?”  It helped to open my iPad with pictures from the Baby Booties Diaper Bank of cute kids and explain we would use some of their chore money to buy diapers for needy families.  I went on, “God wants us to not just read and understand the Bible but act on it and help others.”  Then came the funny history of dirty booties in our own family between pooping in the fort outside to leaving treasure nuggets behind the chair in our bedroom.  “Stay on target,” I could hear my inner captain say.  And from there I described what we would do.  Give some of our hard earned money (me too) to buy diapers, wipes, and cream for needy families in Collin County through our own diaper drive.

“Dad, you know what we could do?” asked the daughter who started this with her fat Bible question.  “We could get those people (at the Baby Booties Diaper Bank) to send us a thing like a picture and we hand it out to people so they’ll know what we’re doing.”  She was totally synced with me, now we were on the same page.  But there was some quiet rioting.

“I don’t really want to give away any of my money,”  “I won’t have enough left,”  “But that’s supposed to be our money.”  “God wants us to use some of that to give back to Him by helping others,” I said.

And that’s where we started.

The Diaper Drive begins after Spring Break leading up to Easter, are you in?  Diapers (size 1-4), wipes, and cream can be left at my Plano location at 6309 Preston Rd., Suite 1200, Plano.

© 2014, Dean Wisdom

Dean Wisdom

Author Dean Wisdom

Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor, National Certified Counselor, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor

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