The Jesus Fairy Tale

Sometimes I wonder, am I the only one who doubts my faith this often? Every November it creeps in--no, every season I think. It's just so hard to get past the way it sounds like a fairy tale. Recently, we spent an afternoon with our niece and nephew. As we were getting back into the car after a pizza lunch, my six year old nephew casually remarked, "I wish I could have everlasting life." Jordan and I looked at each other, puzzled, certain this son of the church worship leader had already had this conversation with his parents. "Well, buddy," I started slowly, "I think you already do." "I do?" He exclaimed with excitement. "Yes! If you asked Jesus to forgive your sins and to be your Savior, then you will live eternally with him in heaven...remember?" "No, I know that," he sighed as if this were old news. "But I want everlasting life now, on earth," he explained, "I don't want to die." Oh, right. Me neither, buddy.

Maybe this magical place called heaven feels a little far fetched to Jackson, too. He'd rather stay here where he knows what to expect. He lives in Florida, after-all.  Can heaven really get much better? I thought of telling him what I used to tell my kindergartners after they'd become frightened by death after one too many prayer requests for dying dogs, cats, or fish. One would whine, "I don't want to die!" and another would pipe up, "Miss Terrill, what happens when you die?" "Well," I'd smile peacefully,"For those of us who put our trust in Jesus, dying, I think, will feel a lot like waking up from a dream. You know how sometimes you think your dream is real life, and then you wake up and realize it was only a dream and it's time to go to school? That's what dying will feel like. Heaven will be real life and our life on earth will feel like a dream." At least I hope so.

I didn't have time to impart this to Jackson because he had other questions for me. "Where is heaven, Aunt Kate?" "Well," I glanced at Jordan, "Heaven is another world, but it's not very far away. It's, umm, like the movie you watched yesterday. Remember when the kids walked into the wardrobe and they were suddenly in another place? It's like that." "Is that right?" I whispered to Jordan while Jackson continued, "And what will we look like in heaven?" Apparently Jackson considered me a theological expert on all things eternal. The questions poured in: How do we get to heaven? Will we be like angels in heaven? Are there animals in heaven?....

I kept verifying my answers with Jordan, wondering why Jackson wasn't asking his uncle who is currently taking a theology class in Seminary. Even though I knew the answers to most of Jackson's questions, having asked them myself, and answered them for others, what bothered me was that I couldn't guarantee Jackson that those things are true. They do sound like a fairy-tale. There's a bad guy named Satan, and he tempts us to sin. He pulls us away from the good guy, God. But the hero, named Jesus, sacrificed himself so that the bad guy couldn't get us anymore. Oh, and Jesus beat Satan in the end, so now we all get to live in heaven happily ever after. It's the stuff of fairy tales.

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My mom told us a story last night about a friend of hers whose son has diabetes. That's the bad part, but the cool thing is that the son has a dog who alerts him when his blood-sugar is off. The dog barks, and the son knows he needs to check his blood-sugar. And usually the dog is right. Even when the dog is home and the boy is 23 miles away. That sounds kind of like a fairy tale, too.

Last week, some friends told us about their friend who was really sick and traveled to see these special doctors in another state. The doctors had performed scientific tests which showed that certain foods we eat have a positive charge that makes them beneficial to humans, and other foods we eat have a negative charge and are detrimental to humans. And it just so happens that the foods God told the Israelites to eat in the Old Testament are all positively charged. And that's not even the crazy part. The scientists tested the negatively charged foods that had been prayed over, and found that they had became neutral! Their physical make-up changed so they were no longer detrimental to a human's digestive system. That definitely sounds like a fairy tale. ...But I believed it.

And I thought of my college roommate, who stayed in bed most weekends our freshman and sophomore years. She slept more than I did each night, if that's possible, because she had a chronic illness. But when she came back to school the fall of our junior year, she stopped sleeping so much. And she stopped having to give herself shots every night. And she stopped having to take a million pills every morning. Because that summer, a friend prayed with her, and God healed her. And that's a fairy-tale come true.

Maybe it's not as hard to believe as I sometimes think it is. If I believe something miraculous I heard through a friend of a friend, or something my mom saw about someone's dog on facebook, why wouldn't I believe the Bible? Not only that, but what is revealed about the One who created the dog who can alert his master from miles away? Doesn't that point to a creator who kind of likes fairy tales? It seems that He has laced our lives with stories that are miraculous for a reason. He's filled the earth with inexplicable things that (most of us) don't totally understand and can't explain. Like homing pigeons, or the way no two snowflakes are the same. Perhaps the very reason for their existence is to point us toward the greatest fairy tale of all that is sometimes very hard to believe, but still very real.

I realize I'm not citing any sources or copying links to articles about these people, so I don't blame you if you're skeptical. But that's okay. Those are my fairy-tale stories and I believe them. You have you're own. You know, those stories you've heard that sound unbelievable except for the fact that you completely trust the person telling you. Or the thing you've seen with your own eyes but you really can't explain? Those are your fairy-tales, and if those stories are true, then maybe the Jesus fairy tale can be true, too.