Our Children’s Church

I knew the question would come sooner or later, but my daughter caught me off guard when she asked, "Mom, why don't you go to church with us?" It was just as awkward as the puzzled looks that I get when I refer to "our children's church" instead of "our church".

Both of my children have always attended church with my mother-in-law. I am 100% in support of this, even though my husband and I do not attend church. My husband has his own reasons for not going which I won't try to explain for him. I just do not have any religious beliefs, and contrary to what I predicted would happen as I grew older, religion seems to me to be more fictitious all the time. But most importantly, I'm just not sure what's true.

Before I start a heated religious debate by saying that, let me add that I do sometimes envy the people who do have religion in their lives. The vast majority of people that I encounter in my everyday life are believers, and therefore sometimes I feel that I must be "missing the boat", so to speak. If so many people believe, then there must be something to it, right? I just don't know.

So our children go to church because we don't know. And since it is possible that it is all true, I feel strongly that my children should learn about it, and decide for themselves what they will believe in their hearts. They need to form their own opinions, and they are entitled to be informed when they do. I listen to them as they tell me about their lessons from Sunday School, and I attend their special events at church. I answer their questions the best that I can, and help them to look up verses in their Bibles. And I join them as they say their mealtime prayers each day.

If they were invited to churches of other faiths, I would encourage them to visit. If, when they get older, they decide to learn about other beliefs, I will help them to explore other spiritual beliefs.

Celia Straus of http://GirlPrayers.com has also faced similar decisions in raising her own children. She says, "The book, Prayers On My Pillow, would never have been written if I hadn't allowed my daughters to explore their own faith in their own way. Like many interfaith couples (I'm Episcopalian - my husband is Jewish) we dealt with our religious differences by pretty much avoiding the topic entirely, so that when girls were young, no one in the family attended church or synagogue or paid much attention to what is sacred and spiritual in our lives. However, when Julia was 12, what started out as her request that I write her a new bedtime prayer each night became a journey to discover the nature of personal faith all four of us still travel today. Literally thousands of prayers later, Julia (19) pursues Judaism and Emily (15) worships as an Episcopalian, both entirely on their own, while my husband and I try to be as attentive as we can to living our faith in the moments of each day."

In the article "All God's Children: Learning About Spirituality" by Katy Abel (http://familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,1-25534-0-1,00.html), she says "Children's thoughts and feeling about God or other spiritual themes appear to be a natural part of human development, a search for some force in the universe that represents eternity and the absence of change. Even children who are not raised in a religious home are likely to ask spiritual questions." I agree with her completely, and am proud to be letting my children explore their own spirituality. After all, they are individuals, not clones of ourselves, and they are entitled to their own beliefs.

If anything was going to make me believe, I think it would be my daughter's own faith. She believes with all her heart and soul. For example ...how she insisted that Jesus was at her birthday party ....when she prayed for a puppy and we got one very unexpectedly that same day ...how she prays for the sick and the injured every time she sees an ambulance or fire truck ...when she had nobody to play with but she said she wasn't lonely because Jesus was with her in her heart ...and too many more instances to name. I feel like if there is a God, he must have something special planned for her. Sometimes it seems like her soul is just glowing inside of her. Those are the moments when I truly question my lack of faith.

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Credits: Family Content