Prizes for Bad Parents?

This past Sunday during our team worship confirmed something that every Christian parent fears. On Sunday we confirmed that Kelton is afraid of "Jesus Loves Me." Of all the songs to be afraid of or dislike, "Jesus Loves Me" and we are even missionaries? But before we pack our bags and head back to the states let me fill you in on how this tragedy happened.

We have had suspicions that Kelton might not like the song for a couple of months now. Our team loves to sing and since we have a few other kids on the team we sometimes get to sing children's songs. Almost every time one of our teammates has started to sing "Jesus Loves Me" Kelton starts to cry, but we were not sure if it was our teammate’s delivery of this timeless classic or if Kelton really was afraid of the song. This past Sunday put all of those suspicions to rest though as we took time for a children's worship during our weekly team worship service and sang "Jesus Loves Me" as one of the songs. Before we started this song Kelton was perfectly happy and enjoying the singing, but as soon as we started the song, he sat down in Jennifer's lap and started to cry as loud as he could. He cried the entire song. What have we done?!

How did he get this way, what did we do? For most of Kelton's life when bedtime comes around we normally take him to his room, hold him in our arms, sing a song, and then put him in bed and close the door. 9 out of 10 times that song is Jesus Loves Me. Why not? If there is one message we want to pass to Kelton it is that Jesus loves him (I am sure there are plenty of other lessons for another time, but he is only a year and three months). Well, somewhere in the world of psychology some conditioning expert is happy. That is right we have conditioned our child, not intentionally, but he is conditioned nonetheless. Now every time he hears "Jesus Loves Me" he thinks it is time for bed and Sunday night it was just a little too much. All of his friends were there and everyone was still up and playing why should he have to go to bed?

I am happy to say we have now moved on and are no longer singing just Jesus Loves Me. So someday he may be able to hear the song and not cry and we may not have to take our seats with other Christian parents gone wrong. (ha)