I have always wondered why when I have had almost 30 years’ experience of God’s undeserving grace that I continue to pray for my faith to be that of a child’s unwavering and ever-trusting faith. Watching my daughter answers that question.

At a young age, my daughter always seemed to be full of questions. When she started going to Sunday school and preschool, she seemed fascinated by the Bible stories. When she was three and a half, she began asking questions about heaven. One day she asked if her grandmas and grandpas knew about Jesus, and then if her aunts and uncles and cousins did as well. At first, I was shocked because two of her uncles were pastors and one of her grandmas was a WELS school teacher. But then I thought about what she was asking me. In her way she was reaching out with her faith and wanted to know if the people she loved needed to know about Jesus.

Over the years my daughter has been faced with many opportunities to share her faith, including at school. Since we don’t have a Lutheran school with our church, this year was the first year that my daughter was in a public school full time. While growing up, I had been blessed with a faithful Christian family that had been able to put me through a Lutheran day school, high school, and college. I wanted the same for my daughter—for her to go to a school where she could hear about Jesus every day and where she could pray with her class and teacher.

But I quickly realized what a blessing it was that she was in public school. After the first month of school, my daughter proudly announced that she, Joseph, and Morgan prayed before lunch and snack that day. Two months later my daughter said that she had a friend at school that didn’t believe in Jesus. She went on to say that she had asked her friend if she believed in Jesus and her friend told her: “No. Jesus is just a ghost.” My daughter’s response was: “No, he’s real!” The next day my daughter came home and said that she asked her friend Terri, who is in her Sunday school class, to help her talk to this other friend about Jesus. My daughter certainly is persistent.

If only I could always have that simple and persistent faith of a child and shout it from the mountaintops that Jesus is our Savior!