Posthumous Blogging: Who Wears the Crown?

Here is a story from sometime in July:

The BabyGirl's night-night song is "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus." We have sung that song for her bedtime since she was about 4 months old. She knows it by heart. My dad even commented that she knows verses that he and my mom don't even know.

Back in April, the BabyGirl and i made a trip to visit my parents. She has a very difficult time sleeping in new environments. One night while we were there, i put her down for bed and then my mom and i needed to run out to the grocery. My dad was on BabyGirl duty. I told him that if she woke up, he should hold her with her head on his shoulder and sing Tis So Sweet.

Well sure enough, she woke up. He followed instructions and held her while singing her song. He tried to put her back in bed; it was a no-go. Like trying to put a cat in the bathtub, she resisted gravity. He sang it again; she still wouldn't go down. At this point he was bored of that song and decided to sing something else. She jerked her head up from his shoulder and glared at him with a look that said, "You are breaking protocol and i won't stand for it." He quickly resumed singing Tis So Sweet, and she rested her head back on his shoulder.

By the time she was two years and a few months old, however, she also got bored of Tis So Sweet. One day during naptime i decided to sing "What Wondrous Love Is This." She loved it! She's got quite a knack for picking up new songs. After two naptimes' worth of singing it, she knew most of the words to the first verse. (Even though she has no idea what a "soul" is.) Then she turned her attention to one of the other verses:

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down
When I was sinking down, sinking down
When I ws sinking down, beneath God's righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul.
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

When i got to the part about the crown, she lifted her head from my shoulder and said enthusiastically, "A crown like a princess wears!" She was so pleased to have picked up on a word she knew.

I said, "You're right; a princess does wear a crown! And Jesus has a crown also."

Whoa, whoa, wait a second there Mama. She looked at me with pity for my ignorance. You see, she knows A LOT about Jesus. She has her Jesus Storybook Bible practically memorized. There was a stretch of time when she refused to get out of bed in the morning until she'd read her Bible (pretty convicting for me, actually). She flips through the pages and names each character: that's Daniel! that's Zaccheus! that's Saul!

But her favorite picture by far is Jesus with the children. She frequently requests it. "Want to see Jesus and boy and girl!" After multiple experiences of flipping through the entire Bible to find that page (well okay, flipping through the gospels. It's obviously not in the Old Testament), we finally committed it to memory. Page 225.

Incidentally, she also knows a good deal about princesses, thanks to my sister's gift of the book The Princess Primer. It is filled with all sorts of useful information, from styles of ballgowns to how to tell a good prince from a bad prince to the proper way to curtsy.

As she looked at me, i could see her mentally filing through all the pictures of Jesus in her Bible and comparing them to the pictures in the princess book:

With her analysis complete, she felt qualified to inform me: "No Mama, Jesus has no crown."

There was no arguing with her. She had evidence.

One day we will spend a little more time reading Revelation, where Jesus kicks butt and takes names. But for now, she sees Jesus as a familiar friend who invites you to sit on His lap and play.

I think that's exactly how it should be.