You want to know what?

The other night, my 4-year-old son ran into our bedroom. “Dillon has a question for you,” said my husband, who was following close behind and giving me a look that said, “This is a good one.”

“Mommy, where was I before I was here?” He flashed a smile that shows he knows exactly how cute he is and how proud he was to think of the question all by himself.

I glanced and my husband and nodded. Yes, this was a good one, indeed. My son wanted to know where he was before he was in the world. “Well, I had that very same question when I was your age. And I think before we are born, we are with God. And the angels.” I looked at my husband, for backup.

“I told him he was like a ghost battery. Like on Scooby Doo.”

“Huh?” Then I laughed. How bizarre. Dillon laughed too.

“I told him he was like energy you can’t see,” my husband explained. I nodded again, understanding we had essentially told Dillon the same thing, just in different ways.

“So Dillon,” I said, lobbing the biggest question of all, “what do you think?”

He wrinkled up his face, pondering. “I think I was with God.”

My husband shrugged. “The ghost battery is a tough sell.”

But so is the concept of being with God. I’ve had thirty-five years to experience and contemplate what that means to me. I want to freely share my perspectives, while giving my children room to consider these things on their own. Dillon’s question had come from his own imagining. And to me, that is truly fascinating. We can't be forced into these realizations. We discover our truth in our own way. We can't be afraid to be curious, to have questions.

Of course, it was just a matter of time before the conversation moved from spiritual things to the science of it all... exactly how do babies make their grand entrance?