Three-Year-Old Theology

And other questions I don't have answers for

A terrible question came into my brain the other day.

I hadn’t invited it, nor did I want it. It was unsettling and haunting because it was the type of question I couldn’t summons a single good answer for. It made me uncomfortable. The question didn’t make God look very good, and, since my very ability to face life depends on God being a good One, the whole thing made me feel flimsy and unsure.

This sort of thing happens once in a while, usually during a bit of intense questioning that I like to call ‘Three-Year-Old Theology.’

During Three-Year-Old Theology, Theo interrogates me about all of life’s deepest mysteries in a rapid-fire round of “But why, Mommy?”s that leaves me thumbing through my mental repertoire of scripture, sermons, podcasts, and books in a desperate effort to satisfy this most critical of thinkers. He is not satisfied with pat answers; if I dare respond with an “I don’t know, buddy,” he cries, indignant, “Yes you DO know!” as if I’m holding back the world’s wisdom just for the fun of it.

Just yesterday, a somber Theo asked, “Mommy, why did God create the dinosaurs just to sweep them away? Didn’t he like them?” And, just after that—“Who created God and Jesus, anyway?”

I stumbled and stuttered my way through some answers, all of which Theo found rather unsatisfactory. I finally threw up my hands and said, “That’s a big question. We’ll have to ask God someday.”

“When we get to Heaven?” he asked. This began a new litany of questions about the nature of eternity, what our rooms in heaven will be like, and why Jesus had to die on the cross, anyway.

I love that Theo is a critical thinker, but I find his questions unnerving. I prefer to ask and be asked questions that I already have good answers for. It makes me feel calm. Smart. Stable. Questions that don’t seem to have any good answers, on the other hand, make me feel doubtful. Uncertain. Afraid. I usually deal with these types like smoke from a blown-out candle—I dismiss them with a wave and hope they’ll dissipate quickly so I can go back to breathing clean air again.

So I don’t know what came over me the other day when I had that terrible question come into my brain. It was one I didn’t want to think about—I was wondering why, if God knows and loves each child that he creates, why does he choose some to be born to families that will surely neglect them, or abuse them, or traumatize them?