Things That Go Bump in the Night October 8, 2012
It seems to be a frequent bedtime refrain at our houselately: “I’m scared!” And more often than not, the night ends with our littleJulia sleeping somewhere in our room. When we ask her for specifics, she’snervous about a dragon or the shadows on the wall or the dark place in hercorner. It’s anything and everything, really.
Have you ever wondered where these random, childhoodfears come from—the ones unattached to a scary movie or picture book? I’m nochild psychologist, but I have spent many hours in the dark with a frightenedchild. Sitting there by so many bedsides over the years, my musings have led meto believe that children instinctively know that they inhabit a broken, unsafeworld. It’s the converse of their childish intuition that we live in anenchanted, wonderful world, too. Kids just know that birthdays are magical andbest friends are a treasure; and somehow, kids also know that there really is amonster lurking under the fabric of our fallen world.
Kids seem to have an innate sense that they inhabit auniverse where something has gone badly awry. Bedtime shadows and nighttimenoises don’t create a child’s fear; they simply connect with a fear that’salready there. Kids know—they instinctively know—there are things andplaces in our world which just aren’t safe.
Our job, I believe, is not to discount theirinstincts; after all, they are correct! Our job is to give them a solid answerto what they feel. “Yes, honey, our world is haunted. Something awful hashappened to our enchanted kingdom. But let me tell you a story about a bravePrince who came from His home in the city of the great King to take care of allthe scary things…”
What good will it do, after all, to train them to puttheir hope in us or the nightlight or anything less than Jesus Christ alone?Remember, Mom and Dad, you won’t always be there to banish the dragons.
He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed alaw in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, 6that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and ariseand tell them to their children, 7 so that they should set theirhope in God… Psalm 78:5-7