Tough Questions

So Strawberry, my 6-year-old is having a crisis of faith.  I love that she is questioning and wants to know for herself, but I thought we'd have a few more years before this came up.  She first asked me why she has never gotten any answers to prayers.  I'm not sure where this question came from, but she said she has never had Heavenly Father talk to her and never heard the "still small voice" and so she didn't know why she should keep praying when he doesn't really answer.  I talked to her about the Spirit and how it communicates and the answers to prayers that I have had, none of which have involved actual words, but feelings and thoughts.  And I talked to her about having faith and persistence in prayers and feeling good or bad about things.  She seemed pretty content with what we talked about.

So then today we were watching Veggie Tales Jonah and the Whale which we just bought and after Jonah receives God's will to preach to the Ninehvites (?) Strawberry said to me, "I'm starting to wonder if Heavenly Father is really even real.  What if everything they've been telling us is a lie because they don't really know the truth.  What if nobody has ever really seen him and they were lying.  What if the people who wrote the scriptures were just making stuff up?  I've never seen him.  Why do other churches teach things that are different than what we teach?  How do we know ours is right or even if any of them are right."  Holy smokes.  It's funny because I'm pretty blown away and sort of nervous about saying the right thing to help her, but I'm so proud of her for thinking that much about it and not just believing everything she hears.  But wow, I wasn't prepared for this.  I should have known though because there have been so many instances where she asked us about something that confused her or that conflicted with something else she had been taught and we explained that sometimes people are wrong and she has to believe what her heart tells her.  

So yeah, time to do more one-on-one gospel time with her to help her have the tools she needs in order to build a testimony.  She'll be getting baptized in a year and I want her to really know as much she can so that she can make an informed decision (as well as an 8-year-old can). 

The poor girl was just running through the hall because she was so excited that school starts tomorrow and ran her head right into the corner of the wall and gave herself a huge bump on the head.  I hate it when my kids get excited because they always hurt themselves.  It's terrible.  I'm afraid they've inherited their mom's tendency to fall down all the time.  :(