Henry, On His Birthday Morning

Rare is the morning that the sun greets us before Henry. We have grown used to his climbing into bed with us; we often don't even remember him slipping in between us. If he comes asking for someone to play with him, we gently remind him that night-time is for sleeping, and he may climb into our bed or go back to his own.

Saturday, however, he wanted to stand by our bedroom window and wait for the sun to rise. Dreams of his birthday still fresh in his mind, he wanted to be there for the very first bit of light. I had to admire his enthusiasm.

So he stood there for a minute, looking through the iron grate on the window to the starry sky. Then he turned into the mosquito net and asked, "Is it morningtime yet?"

"Not yet," I whispered, "Come back to bed."

"I want to wait for it, Mom."

And so we waited, repeating the dialogue a few more times.

Then: "Mom, what if the sun is gone? What if someone threw a rock at it and it fell down?"

I thought about this a moment. Was it really a good time to tell my four year old that if the sun fell down we would freeze to death in minutes? Should I use the opportunity to reinforce why we don't throw rocks randomly into the air?

"Henry, that is called faith. Believing what we can't see. Do you think the sun is going to come up today?"

He thought about his for a long minute. "Yes."

"Then you have faith that God will make the sun rise today."

Another long pause.

"Oh. Okay, Mom."

I am happy to say the sun did rise on the fourth anniversary of Henry's birth. Thankfully less than an hour after this conversation. He is a joy to parent and we are thankful each day that God has trusted us with him!

Keep having faith, Henry. May you always ask good questions and always believe in the goodness of God, who created you and the sun and the stars.

More on Henry's Birthday Week after it's over tomorrow. :)