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Why is that man so sad?" my three-year-old niece, Patty, asked her mother. She had noticed a small, bearded man while walking to their neighborhood convenience store. "He is sad because he doesn't have a home to live in or food to eat," her mother, Alison, answered.
The reply seemed to satisfy Patty. Her mother was relieved that at least this time her inquisitive daughter didn’t ask, “Why doesn’t he have a home or food?”
Later, Alison said to me, “This man looks like he could be any child’s grandfather. What would I have told her?” Now each time they walk to the store Patty asks, “Will the sad man be there, or has he found a home yet?”
A few weeks later, my three-year-old son, Bobby, was closely studying a photograph on the front page of our daily newspaper. It was a picture of a child near death being held by his mother in an African relief camp. Pointing to the child, Bobby asked, “What happened?”
Jesus in Our Hearts. These days, children start asking questions like this at a younger and younger age. They notice…
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