"Do you believe in God?" I asked one of my teens this summer. "I don't get it all..." he answered slowly, "It doesn't all make sense to me."

Oh baby, welcome to the club. I cherish the honesty in that statement. Who, after all, does "get it all"? People who say they understand it all scare me. They're just a little too RIGHT, if you know what I mean. (Dana Carvey as the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live always comes to mind.)

We don't need to "get it all." We never will. We're only asked to have child-like faith. Children believe in things without first-hand evidence. They believe simply because they want to believe. No proof required.

Something sad happens as we age, however. Our skepticism grows and grows. We start to require proof. We demand answers and explanations. Like this letter that was left on my bedside table recently,

"Mom, why do you/the toothfairy always give me 50 cents. Can I have a dollar or two?"

Skeptism drizzled off the page. Who leaves me money? Is it Mom? Or is it the tooth fairy? Why is she so cheap? Mom is cheap. That might mean Mom is the tooth fairy. That settles it. My mom is the tooth fairy. (Note: we never once told our kids there was a tooth fairy, we simply left them a paltry few coins to celebrate the new hole in their mouth.)

We want to know...is this real or isn't it? Parents, seeking to be imaginative and cute, muddy the pure water of our children's believing hearts. They're just not sure what to believe. Early on, Dave and I commited to always telling our kids the truth and nothin' but the truth. To my knowledge, I only slipped once. But it was a biggie. When my kids were little, they wanted to know what happened to their baby teeth after they fell out. I made up a fairy tale in which their tiny little teeth got thrown in the ocean and grew into beautiful pearls. In reality, I flushed them down the toilet. Who knows? They say all paths lead to the ocean...they could have become pearls. However, as you might have noticed, this was not the whole truth. It came back to haunt me.

One child was born skeptical. He decided to test the pearl theory. He saved a tooth, put it in a jar in his bedroom, and watched it every day,waiting for the transformation. All he learned is that Mommy tells tall tales or is perhaps a big fat liar. (And we all learned that a tooth in water starts to really smell over time.)

My own personal Doubting Thomas. Do you have one? Are you one? Doubting Thomas got the bum rap in Scripture because he demanded proof. He was out of the room when Christ came back from the dead. He didn't believe his friends when they told him about it. He said he'd need to see --and feel!-- for himself. I can relate.

John 20:26-29

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."


Jesus came in through the walls and said, "Peace be with you!" It's the equivalent of saying, "Relax." He did not take the time to explain how he came in without opening the door. It was information they didn't need to know. Just relax. And believe. You'll be blessed.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. You see, I think Jesus purposely didn't explain every little thing. If we knew it all, we wouldn't need faith. Faith is believing what we do not see. We don't have to have all the answers. We can come to the Lord with the tiniest smidgen of faith. We can say, "Are you the Lord, or aren't You?" He's delighted to enter into the Grand Conversation with us. So, as I say to my son, "You don't have to understand it all, Honey. Stop doubting and believe."

And yes, Julia, your mom is the tooth fairy at our house, and fifty cents is all you'll ever get for a tooth.