Elijah Goes to Heaven
What better way to finish up our weeks on Elijah than with the exciting story of the chariot of fire coming to escort him up to heaven in a whirlwind? I don’t know if it’s just because Ian accepts whatever I tell him or if he really didn’t get it, but he didn’t seem all that amazed at the miraculous aspects of the story. It probably didn’t help that we had less time than usual for lessons this week. We spent one day at a children’s museum he’s been begging to go back to for months, and then Grandpa and Grandma returned from a month-long trip, so we were pretty busy this week. I didn’t want to skip our Bible time altogether (I’m now in my third trimester and the way I’m feeling, we’ll probably be taking a break from “school” soon), so I just focused on getting the story into Ian’s heart and mind, and we skipped much of what we usually do (like a memory verse, a page for our Bible notebook, an iPod playlist, and any kind of literature unit).
When I introduced the story with our flannel board set I was a bit disappointed because Ian didn’t seem all that interested. (In fact the first time I tried, I ended up stopping halfway through because he kept getting distracted. We came back to it later and made it through, but still without much comment from Ian.) However, later that day I found him playing with the flannel board on his own, and he’d obviously caught more than I thought. In his mind I guess Jesus was in the chariot, because when he was retelling it, the Elijah figure got very excited, saying, “Jesus! Jesus!” and kissing him all over. I love how God works. I’d tried telling Ian the story, got frustrated, gave up, tried again and made it through but still felt like a failure, and yet it turns out God was working in his heart the whole time. Jesus may not have actually been a part of the story, but I think Elijah must have felt that same sense of excitement at going to see the Lord. Ian caught a part of the story I hadn’t even considered. It was a good reminder to me that my job is just to be faithful in teaching my children God’s commands. “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deuteronomy 6:7). God’s the one who stirs their hearts.
The only other thing we did was review the story throughout the week. We read it from The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley) and The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes. Ian also requested it for his bedtime Bible story, so we read it from 2 Kings 2:1-14 in the “real Bible”.
And that wraps up our four weeks on Elijah! We’ll be doing a few more Old Testament stories this fall, then we’ll take a break to welcome our little Arianna to the family, and hopefully jump back in with the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum for New Testament stories starting in January.