Poor choices...

Kate has loved her picture Bible since she received it on her first Christmas. When I'm working on my Bible study at the kitchen table, she finds her Bible, climbs up in the chair across from me, and "reads" her Bible too - it's a really sweet time for us.

Yesterday afternoon I was writing an email to a friend and I heard her singing across the room from me. She was singing "Jesus loves me" better than I'd ever heard her sing it before while she turned the pages of her Bible. Since we're studying Moses at BSF, in September I helped her learn how to find his story in her Bible. So between renditions of "Jesus loves me" she would turn the pages of the Moses story and tell a two year old version of events - the story usually includes Moses not obeying God, having to sit in the hall, and then having to say he was sorry somewhere in there!

So as I was typing I thought in the back of my mind about how lucky I am to be Kate's mom, about how she's already learning to love God as well as understand that He loves her, and just marveling at my precious girl. Warm, fuzzy feelings were hovering thickly all around me... and then it happened.

I heard a deliberately slow: RRRRrrrriiiippppp...
the fuzzy feelings fell like bricks.

I looked over to see my "precious" girl holding the first page of Genesis all alone in her hand. I don't know why she thought that would be a good idea or what compelled her about the story of the heavens and the earth that made it such an attractive page to take out, but there was absolutely no doubt Kate chose to tear that page out on purpose. She accidentally ripped part of a Bible page last summer when turning too fast and we've talked with her on multiple occasions about how we treat all kinds of books with care (especially library books!) - so there's no question in my mind she knew it was wrong.

But she offered no explanations during my interrogation.
She was incredibly reluctant to apologize.
She glared defiantly at me from her time out spot.

No matter how many Sunday school songs she can belt out and no matter how deep or shallow her understanding of God's love, she's still a sinner - just like me. I still don't know why she chose to tear out a page of her Bible, but the more I tried to search for the reasoning behind her little act, I realized that there are plenty of tearing-a-page-out-of-my-Bible sort of choices I make each day too. I need to more consciously choose not to do those things - both for my own benefit as well as so I can be a better example for Kate. We both have so far to go, but we're both trying hard to get there one day at a time!