No atheists in foxholes

It is 1:27 AM. I am out in the living room trying to finish Quicken, so that I can finish TurboTax. I just finished tucking Levi back into bed after a good 45 minute meltdown.

He woke up and wanted a drink of water.

Something was not to his satisfaction. Weeping and gnashing of teeth ensued. Paige told him if he didn't calm down, he would have to go downstairs and sleep. He didn't, so downstairs he went. Paige went back to bed and told me he was my job.

Levi was downstairs yelling for mommy, for daddy, that he was scared, that it was too dark, that he didn't want to be downstairs. He came out of the room. I put him back in. Three times.

I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for the fourth time. We are now going on something like 20 minutes of screaming. He was again reciting his litany of complaints. He paused, as if thinking of something profound. From the darkness of the bedroom, I heard him shout (his exact words:)

"DEAR GOD. PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE! I'M TOO SCARED DOWN HERE!"

"GOD! PLEASE GO GET MY DADDY AND TELL HIM TO COME DOWN AND GET ME!"

I was trying to be firm in my discipline... but that one got me. I went into the room, and he calmed down, said he wanted a hug. I asked him if he was ready to stop throwing a fit and go back to his room where he wouldn't be scared. He said yes.

As I carried him upstairs, I told him that I heard him praying to God.

"Well" he says, "I told him to go tell you to come down and get me."

"And did I come down?" I said.

"Well" Levi said, "I guess Jesus really is God! And he heard me!"



Funny how we sometimes don't seem to grow up much from the age of three. We rant and rave against the world, scream, yell, try to get out on our own, only to get thrown back into the darkness, half terrified, but still knowing it is the punishment we really deserve. And only when we have exhausted all our other options, when nothing we tried has worked, when we don't know what else to do, do we cry out:

"JESUS! PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE! I'M TOO SCARED DOWN HERE! PLEASE GO GET MY DADDY AND TELL HIM TO COME DOWN AND GET ME!"

And then we (re)discover that Jesus really is God... and he does hear us.