Saturday 20 September 2014

Soaking it in

One of motherhood's hardest aspects is that it is not a results driven job.  You work and work and work and often don't see any product of your labours, not yet anyway.  Decades down the road we desperately hope to see beautiful, thoughtful, faithful, caring people emerge and fly gracefully from the nest, but the road to that day is long and dirty.  But, every now and then, we are granted a glimpse that affirms our day to day work.

A couple of weeks ago I staged a takeover of Friday night movie night.  I have been long agitated by the intellectual junk food I've allowed my children to consume, rotting their brains out each week.  I have such fond memories of Sunday nights with my family, watching the Wonderful World of Disney, old films with saner pacing and good characters who learn a lesson.  I was done with Spongebob.

Last night I popped on my favourite animated Disney movie: Robin Hood.  Part way through, Caleb turned to me.

"Was this movie written by a Christian?" asked Caleb.
"I don't know.  What makes you say that?" I replied.
"It feels like a whole bunch of scripture stories stitched together."
"Really?"
"Yes, like how the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was written by a Christian and tells stories about Jesus."
"How do you see that in Robin Hood?"
"Well, that seen with in the church with the coin was like the widow's mite, when she gave everything she had. And Robin Hood and Little John sneaking into town to confront the king, and then break out everyone from jail is like Nephi and Sam going back to Jerusalem to get the gold plates."

I smiled to myself.  The stories are sticking!  Every night for almost nine years we have read a scripture story to the kids.  Up until this September we have used several different children's bibles that simplified the language.  In September we started reading from the scripture directly, paraphrasing difficult language ourselves as we go.  But I always wondered how much they were actually taking in.  It's nice to know the stories are sticking!

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