The Faith Of A Child, Part 3

If you have not yet read parts 1 & 2, you must start there. I think this story will touch your heart. Please go to Part 1.


I must admit that this post has caused the old leaky eyes to start. I hope you have enjoyed reading it half as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

I thought you might like to see the dresser that we received as an answer to Hannah's prayer. When we originally got it, it was missing a drawer. I like to do some wood-working, so I just pulled out the other drawer and was going to use it as a pattern.

Knowing that I would not be finished in the next 1-2 weeks, or maybe years, I decided I'd better come up with a 'temporary' solution. I cut a few boards to size and placed them in the empty socket left by the absent drawers. Hannah began using this space as a great place to store her shoes.





At this point, Hannah loves it just the way it is, so it looks like my 'temporary' solution is going to be permanent. This helps answer one of my prayers, in that it cleans up the area in our entry-way. Previously, all of Hannah's shoes could be found in the area where you see the roller skates. It looks so much better now.






This has been a huge learning experience and faith-building exercise for me. I hope you have found value in it, as well.

We can often find so much to learn from our little children if we simply take the time to watch, open our ears to listen, and trust in God to lead.


Sometimes God's leaders and lessons come from unlikely sources.

Are we ready to listen to Him and follow?


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The Faith Of A Child, part 2

If you have not read the first part of this story, please take the time to do so now. Otherwise, this one will make very little sense. Go to: http://lifewithrachael.blogspot.com/2009/08/faith-of-child.html.


After Hannah's move into her new bedroom, we realized she did not have a dresser for her new room. Hannah prayed to God in the sweetest way possible, and with total faith, after which she fell deep into a sweet sleep. Rachael was the one putting her to bed and told me about Hannah's prayer.

Being the adult that I am, I marvelled at her incredible faith, her seemingly unwavering belief in her God. I probably even envied it a little bit.

Then I began to worry some.

"What's going to happen when Hannah wakes up and she has no dresser?"

"What's going to happen when we go through the entire day tomorrow, and there is no dresser?"

"Will I be able to convince Hannah that God answered her prayer by Rachael and I spending our money to purchase one?"

"Will her faith be tested?"

I fell asleep thinking about how to explain to Hannah why she did not have a dresser sitting in her room when she woke up. With the incredible faith that she had, I thought she might actually be surprised that the dresser was NOT there.


I woke up Sunday morning and got the kids out of bed, and began to make breakfast. Yes, I made breakfast. I am in charge of Sunday mornings. While I have never professed to being a fine chef, I serve up a mean toasted Eggo waffle, or Quaker Oatmeal (the kind that you only have to add hot water to.) I sometimes mess up the oatmeal, but usually it comes out at least edible. As I was getting everything ready, I was trying to prepare mentally to help answer any of the doubts that Hannah was sure to express about there not being a dresser in her room.

I called to the kids that breakfast was ready. They dutifully came and sat down. We said grace and began to eat.

This was it.

This was when Hannah was going to start asking the questions.

She opened her mouth to talk.

I braced myself.

"Dad, can I have some milk, please?"

The entire breakfast went smoothly. There were no questions. There was only the normal conversational banter that comes whenever you have 3 kids in close proximity to food.

After breakfast, I headed off to take my shower after giving the kids their instructions to clear their spots and get ready for church.

"Whew, it looks like I'm not getting any hard questions this morning!"

Everyone got ready and we piled in the truck. Now, we live about 35 minutes from the church we go to. That's a long time. Plenty of opportunity for Hannah to ask the Hard Questions.

But there were no Hard Questions. There were no questions at all. By this time, I figured maybe Hannah had just forgotten about her prayer.

I think I may have just been underestimating the depth of her faith.

Sometimes when we as adults ask God for something, if He doesn't answer in the next 4 minutes, we figure he's just not listening, or Satan's attacking, or our spouse is living so unholy that God can't possibly answer our prayers. We sometimes forget about that whole In His Time thing.

We had a fairly uneventful ride to church. We always enjoy seeing the ocean, the sea lions, the beautiful reflection of the sun on the bay. We had our normal conversations. All was normal and nice.


We pulled up to the church.

We looked at the yard surrounding the church and saw a dresser.

I turned to Rachael and said,

"Look at what's in front of the church."

The kids did not see it at first.

Rachael said, "Oh My Goodness, Look at that!" in the exaggerated tone we parents use when we want to be absolutely sure our kids get our message.

Once they saw it, Rebecca said that Hannah needed a dresser. Hannah asked if she could have it.

Now why is there a dresser in front of the church. Why? Why indeed?

We've been going to this same church for almost 6 years. It's not like it is a normal place for people to dump furniture. In our entire time there, we've never seen a dresser there on Sunday morning. Or a couch. Or a bed. Or any other piece of furniture, for that matter.

I'm still not wanting to get my hopes up, so I answer Hannah's question as my adult version of watered-down faith has taught me to:

"I have no idea. We'll have to see what's going on with it."

I have no idea? I have no idea? Can I possibly be any more dense?


We walked into the church and talked with the pastor and the deacon. We asked them what was going on with the dresser. Neither had any idea. They said that someone had left it there sometime on Friday. They both expressed surprise at the fact that no one had taken it on Saturday. The neighborhood around the church is not terrible, but it's not the best. Apparently, things like the dresser don't usually sit around unclaimed for long.

I asked them what they were going to do with the dresser.

They answered.

"We don't know. We don't want it. Do you possibly want it?"

Thinking back to this now, I feel like bawling like a baby. I am prone to doing that at times. Especially when confronted face-to-face with the incredible goodness of God. I told Hannah. She did not even seem surprised. She did seem very grateful and happy.

After Hannah had asked for the dresser, I hoped that I might be able to somehow use the opportunity when she didn't get the dresser to help her learn a lesson about how God doesn't always answer our prayers like we think He might. Maybe a lesson on waiting on God. Or a lesson on never losing Faith.

I was hoping that Hannah's faith might be strenghened.

Instead, Hannah's faith was completely and totally fulfilled, and I was the one to learn the lesson.

When I began this post, I talked about how thankful I am for the influence Rachael has been on our kids. I believe that Rachael has played an instrumental part in helping develop the faith of our children. Life with Rachael is often full of blessings.

That night, as we got down to pray, I talked to Hannah about her prayer the night before and how amazing it was that God had answered it so suddenly and completely. She had the knowing look of a child that knew what was going to happen all along. I don't think she was nearly as amazed as I had been.

She got ready to pray.

I halfway-jokingly asked her if she'd mind asking God to give Daddy a Corvette.

She just looked at me and said, "Dad!" like it was crazy to ask for something like that.


I think she gets it.

She really gets it.

I'm working on it.


*Be sure to come back tomorrow for the final post and to see a picture of the dresser that Hannah's prayers brought.

The Faith of A Child

Life with Rachael has been very exciting.

Life with Rachael has been filled with adventure.

Life with Rachael has been filled with many incidents that are considerably funnier now than what they were when they happened.



While I try to be patient, I'd be giving Pinocchio a run for his money to say I'd never been seething in anger. I think I only actually seethed once, but I have been rather upset at times.

My love for Rachael has always been infinitely more powerful and deeper than any superficial frustration or even anger I may have had over some of the things that have happened.

There are many, many reasons to love Rachael. Tonight, I am going to tell you about at least one.

She is a great mother.

She has taught our children many wonderful things. She has taught them through her actions as well as her words. I believe she has demonstrated an incredibly deep faith in God that has been noticed by our children and manifested in their actions and attitudes.

She has also taught me. She has taught me how to love better and deeper than I ever could have without her. She has taught me how to better live out my Christianity. I think she's better at that than I am, but I'm working on it and I am eternally grateful to live with such a great embodiment of God's love.

We have been living in the same house in Salinas, CA for almost 6 years now. Up until recently, Hannah and Benjamin had shared a room. In addition to this, all three kids shared what we called our toy room. The toy room was a great idea in theory. The theory was that the kids could all go into a common area that would always be nice, clean, and orderly. They would play calmly, quietly, and considerately while listening to Mozart playing in the background. Their multiple intelligences would be stimulated and enhanced.

In practice, it turned out to be a catch-all for junk and toys from all three kids. It turned out to be a fight-magnet. It turned out to be just one and a half steps away from being classified as a junk yard. I am still looking for the ornery kids from the neighborhood that incessantly brought all of their trash and toys over to our house, snuck in the window in the middle of the night, and used our toy room as their own local refuse pit. At least, I'm sure that must have been what was going on, because a typical conversation went something like this:

"Rebecca, there's trash all over the floor. Can you please pick it up?"

"Umm, Dad, that's not mine. I think it's Hannah's."


"Hannah, there's trash all over the floor. Can you please pick it up?"

"Dad, that's Ben's, not mine."


"Ben, there's trash all over the floor. Can you please pick it up?"

"But, D-a-a-a-a-a-d. It's NOT mine!"


This same conversation was repeated when it came time to put the toys away as well. Except for one slight variation.

"Ok, if no one wants to pick up the toys, I'm going to just throw them away."

You could see the looks cross their faces. Each one trying to decide if they really cared about the toys in question. If no, they were more than happy to let me clean up the room for them. Even if they DID care about the toys, you could still see the hesitation, as they thought amongst themselves, "I wonder if _________ likes these toys too. If so, I can maybe wait awhile and they will take care of them for me."

The entire time, I'm staring at blank faces, wondering if I should have me kids checked for possible amnesia.

Most of the time, the amnesia seemed to clear right before the toys were thrown away. One of them would suddenly remember that the toys did belong to them and they'd rush to clean them up.

The plan had always been that when Hannah and Ben got older, we'd separate them, one would stay in the bedroom they currently shared, and the other would move into their own bedroom, and we'd no longer have a toy room.

That was a plan that came to fruition a few weeks ago. Hannah came to us to let us know that she was ready for the big move.


After a lot of hard work, mostly by Rachael, we were almost set.

That's when we discovered that Hannah would no longer have a dresser. She and Ben had always shared a dresser, but now they would be on opposite sides of the house. Ben would keep the dresser they had formerly shared, and now Hannah did not have one. We did not have the extra money to buy a new dresser and had not had time to go to yard sales that day, as our primary focus was on the big move.

The big move took place on a Saturday, not long ago. That night, we said prayers with Hannah. She prayed her normal sweet, innocent, regular prayer that she says every night. But, in addition, she said, "Dear God, can you please send me a dresser for me to use in my new room?"

She said this so sweetly, so innocently, with the absolute pure and beautiful faith that we as grown ups seem to somehow forget, or at least have a really hard time finding after a busy day of dodging bombardments from the devil. She prayed with total faith, total confidence in her God. Rachael was the one that actually prayed with her, but she told me about the prayer.

Now, me being the adult that I am, I knew there was no way God was going to magically reach down and place a dresser in Hannah's bedroom. When I went to sleep that night, I did not expect to wake up in the morning and find a dresser in her bedroom. I figured that God would probably only answer that prayer if I decided to take some money and use it to purchase a dresser for Hannah. In fact, I was mildly concerned that Hannah's faith might be challenged a bit if and when God did not answer her prayer. I did not want her to wake up, go though the day, and be surprised to find out she still did not have a dresser.

The next day did turn out to be quite a surprise. Come back tomorrow to find out what happened.

Click here for part 2!