Only During Service - Never Ask #3

I could have warned him. I could have, but I didn't get the chance.

Our pastor occasionally likes to involve the children in the service by asking some questions. Sometimes he just has them raise their hands, and other times he might ask them a short question like "What was your favorite birthday gift?" or "Do you remember who Abraham's son was?"

I could have warned him to ignore number 3 son's frantically waving hand. The deep breath he took before he began to answer should have clued him in.

The pastor simply asked, "Do you remember a really wise man who had to make a difficult judgment? Does anyone know what happened?"

Well, #3 sure did! He took a deep breath and began at high speed to tell the whole story.... the whole thing..... and just when we thought he would end, he took another deep breath and kept going.... all the way through the famine, and no one had food, and two women had two babies and one died and one said it was the others and no one knew whose it was, and they went to the King, ..... and..... the King got the sword.... and one woman said, "yes, yes, cut him in two.".... and the other said, "no, no! I want him to live - give him to the other woman".... and Solomon knew that the real mother would want him alive.... and all the people were amazed....."

He didn't leave one detail out, and he put in all the right emotions, and explanations, and he just kept going! It took him over two minutes to answer all this. I tried to get him to hush halfway through, but he just turned to me, shrugged, and said, "Mom! He asked about it! He wanted to know!"

The pastor laughed with me afterwards and said the amazing thing is that the kid has a loud clear voice that could be heard all over the church without a microphone.

(I knew that... I wake up to it every morning!)

But, #3 loves to teach. When it is his turn to do devotions in his class, instead of just bringing in a devotional book to read like most do, he spends a week researching his topic and looking up verses, coming up with a point, and putting it into a speech with questions and audience participation. And he is only 8.