I've been having a lot of theological discussions with my eldest daughter, a lot of it revolving around knowing God's will and whether this event or that event was God's will. Is a baby born to a single parent God's will? Is the death of an innocent child? She was trying to reconcile God's role in these sorts of situations. Did He cause them? Did He allow them? Why does good come from a "bad" or immoral situation and why does evil come from a positive and moral situation?
Just a little, light-hearted discussion about fate, God, good and evil. If anyone thinks parenting is a breeze, try weaving a free-will defense into a conversation with a 12 year-old. I think that despite my help, she actually understands a good deal.
Helping her process through stuff helps me process too. It's so easy to get all twisted up inside over friends who lose their young child for seemingly no reason. Showing my daughter how God chooses to limit Himself actually lets me re-explore the abstract concepts and reconnect it to the concrete examples. It doesn't answer every question, but it gives me the basis for asking the right questions in a meaningful way.
The more I look at parenting, especially after trying to explain such things, the more I realize that God designed it for us to identify--even if it's just a little bit--with Him.
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