God's laughing his holy hiney off right now...

A little background to set the ironic stage:

The ELCA right now is in the middle of the process of forming a social statement on human sexuality. As part of that, they've put together a series of Bible studies for congregations to go through and respond to together. The responses from the people of the church will help inform and shape what the statement says.

They just recently came out with a youth version of one of the studies, and I've decided to teach it at my church for the high schoolers. Tonight was a parents' meeting to go over the outline of the course and answer any questions they might have going in.

As part of my conclusion at the end, I acknowledged that while I'm not the parent of a teenager, I AM a parent, and hope to come at things with a parent's sensitivities. I jokingly said, "it should be a few years before Kiddo and I have to have 'the talk.'"
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Okay. Jump to about 15 minutes ago.
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Kiddo woke up with growing pains in his foot. After some TLC (and a little children's ibuprofen), he was feeling better and started telling me about his evening. He finished by saying, "Mommy's really tired, isn't she? Why is Mommy tired?"

I answered, "because of the baby growing in Mommy's tummy. It makes her a little tired sometimes."

His reply:
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"How did the baby get in Mommy's tummy?"
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(Hm. So much for not having "the talk" for a while.)
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***pause***
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"Well, God put it there. He put it there really really small, and now it's growing, and when it's ready to be born we'll go to the hospital."

Kiddo thought about that for a second. "When Mommy eats, it lets the baby eat, and when Mommy drinks, it lets the baby drink, so that the baby can grow?"

"Yep," I answered.

"Will God put a baby in MY tummy?"

(Oh, the innocence of a 3 year old!) "No, Kiddo, God only puts babies in mommies' tummies."

"Not daddies? Or little boys?"

"Nope."

At this point, I expected him to ask why, but luckily his sleepiness was starting to get the best of him. He decided he was satisfied and laid back down.

And somewhere up in heaven, God laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed. I, who had just spent the better part of 45 minutes earlier tonight talking to parents about the importance of they and the church being in conversation with their kids about sex, who had tossed out a throwaway joke about not needing this sort of discussion with my own kid anytime soon, was sweating out an exchange with a 3 year-old.

Holy humor, indeed.

LH