Baptism

Today we went to celebrate little cousin Leah's baptism, along with her big sister Shelby's 2nd birthday. Eddie and the Hubs hung out at the park while I went into the baptism ceremony, and I've got to be honest....I cried.

At first, I thought that it was just the fact that I'm and emotional mess ever since Eddie....I'm the person that cires and commercials, cards...hell, I cried like a baby at the little footprint that was molded into an adorable little concrete stone for my garden on Mother's Day. But there is just something so beautiful about the whole process.....and as the priest spoke, I also thought long and hard about a couple of things.

He made note that as a parent, you job is to help teach your child about God. He said that you cannot just tell them to love God or know God and expect it...you cannot just hang a sign in the kitchen and be done. So how do you teach a child about God? Last week, when we had almost 3 straight days of rain, I told Eddie that God was watering our flowers for us. He looked at me with a blank expression, one that easily said "Who?", but I just left it at that. God just took over watering for a couple days...yes? But while God was watering, he was also flooding farmer's fields and ruining the early beginning of crops.

So. Here's the question.....


How do I teach my son about God when my own views of God are so...........unknown?


I believe in God. But I believe in fate.
I have trouble thinking that God is in charge of all when people get cancer. When kids get cancer.
I have trouble believing that God would hurt something innocent.
I've watched people die. It is not peaceful, it is not painless and it is full of pain and hurt and tears and thinking that life is unfair. God is unfair. Would God be unfair? I don't think so.

So then I thought....maybe God isn't in charge of all of that. Maybe God is there to help us when we need it, but doesn't decide who lives and who dies and who gets sick and who stays healthy. When I pray, I pray that God give a family the strength to get through something. Do prayers for someone to get better work? I pray that doctors going into surgery have steady hands and clear minds. Do prayers of nothing going wrong work?

Does prayer work? Or is it the power of positive thinking? Is putting you life into the hands of fate, really just putting your life into the hands of God?


Now, I know this is a serious topic for a not so serious blog. I know that the things I'm writing may make people uncomfortable, it may confuse people and it may infuriate people because I don't believe what they do. But have you all been taught what to believe or have found it on your own? Because maybe that's what I'm looking for.....to find it on my own.....and what do you do when you want to teach your child, but don't know how?


Sigh.