Here Lies Nemo
My son comes into my office crying and says “Dad, Nemo just died!” And he is soooo upset as you can probably imagine. So I give him a great big hug and tell him I’m sorry and it will be o.k. and that we’ll have to go get another fish from the store this week.
We go into the room to look at Nemo and he then turns around and looks at me full of joy and hope because of what he remembered.
And he says to me… “Dad! I know, we can just ask Jesus to bring him back to life!”
My heart just melts. He then just stares at me with joy knowing that Jesus can do it, remembering all the times we have told him that Jesus is more powerful than anyone and can raise people from the dead. Eagerly he stands there waiting on me to say “Great idea David! Lets ask him now, because I know Jesus can do it!”
Oh how I wish I could have said those words and believed for life to come back into Nemo. But what would David think if we did ask and Jesus didn’t bring Nemo back to life? How would my son’s view of Jesus be affected if it didn’t work?
So I got down on my knees and looked him in the eyes, with my heart in my throat and I said… Nothing. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure to say we should pray or shouldn’t pray. I didn’t want to have him ask Jesus and then the fish not come back to life, so I gave the question over to Stephanie, who told him that sometimes it’s just a fish’s time to die and that fish die all the time and we could go get another one.
I felt horrible and faithless.
David understood, I think, and started not to look so sad. But what did that just do to his view of the all powerful Jesus? Did he lose a little bit of faith in that moment when we basically said that Jesus couldn’t or wouldn’t bring his fish back to life if we asked Him to?
What would you have done? What do you think about our response? Do you think our son lost any faith in the power of Jesus to heal b/c of this? Do you think that if we asked Jesus to bring Nemo back to life He would have?
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February 26th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Life-lesson: Always buy a rubber fish.
February 26th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
one…fish isnt selfaware.there for they are not able to be revived unless he becomes a zombie fish.
two…david is still pretty young, and a fish is easy to forget…I mean they just swim around all day,thats not standoutish or attactable.
three… I would not have a kid.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:54 am
@Evan: They were all out of rubber fish… what do you think about a rubber dog for a replacement?
@JP: David is young, and I’m sure he will be fine… but what do you say to a kid who says “Jesus can do this right? So lets ask him.” ?
February 27th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
…sigh…
And the rubber dog would be significantly less trouble than the non-rubber dog you guys had a while back.
February 27th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I would have told my kid to pray for the fish himself. Who knows.
And if it didn’t happen, its just a fish, its not the same as a dog, and kids don’t really care about stuff for more than a moment anyway.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Yeah..say “Go ahead David. Pray..” and leave the room. If he has the faith of a child, Jesus would do it, right?
When you think about it, though, all children sooner or later somewhat lose their faith in Jesus when they mature and begin to see things differently. Not that maturing makes you see reality, which is Jesus can’t do anything or something. It’s just…maturity causes a loss in faith. Until Spiritually Maturity comes.
It would have been an interesting experiment if you could erase whatever happened.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:28 am
Hey, you should ask Samuel about the time he threw my dead lovebird in the air and yelled “In the name of Jesus, fly… fly!”
It’s a good story!
March 5th, 2007 at 12:03 am
@Allison: So did it fly?