{The Acts, the Judges . . . and Little Miss}

This afternoon I gathered the children around for our Bible reading. Often I give each child something specific to be listening for in the text in order to keep their minds from wandering and their hearts engaged. Little Miss is so very prone to wander that I usually give her some pretty obvious details to pick out.

So today we were in Acts 3. I told her to be listening very carefully in order to be able to tell me what time Peter and John went to the temple and also the name of the gate at which the crippled man was begging. Her ears were perked, ready to catch the details. What she was not prepared for was verse two. I read, "Now a man crippled from birth --"

"What?!" she shrieked. "Crippled from birth?"

I started to explain that he had been born crippled, but her mind was headed in a completely different direction. "That's disgusting! How could a man have a baby?!" Her shrieking continued, and we all suddenly realized that she thought this poor man was crippled from the ordeal of giving birth.

It was some time before I could regain my composure in order to continue the story. (Drew never did. I'm pretty sure he was in muffled hysterics for the rest of the passage.)

Poor Avery. This morning we read about Ehud the Left-Handed Judge. Just when she finally gets her mind wrapped around the possibility of a sword being lost in King Eglon's belly fat, she has to deal with the mental image of a man becoming crippled from birth. But I can tell you one thing: she's not bored. The Word of God is indeed living and active. And pretty exciting, too.