Evolving...

Well, it happened.

Everyone warned us that it would. It is the concern most widely expressed by most of our Christian friends when we have the "Public School" conversation.

Our daughter was exposed to (you might want to be sitting down for this...) evolution. (cue dramatic ba-ba-BUUUUHHH music)

Technically, she was introduced to something akin to the big bang theory.

It didn't happen in the way we would have expected. It wasn't a teacher reading from science curriculum or another student engaging her in a heated debate about faith or telling her she was stupid for believing in a Creator God. It was sneakier than that: she brought home a reading book. It explained the origins of the earth.

As she read Earth: The Water Planet aloud to us my mind started racing. First, I was annoyed. "Come on," I thought. "She's a first grader. It's a reading group book, for reading. Not a science lesson. Couldn't the teacher have chosen something less controversial?"

Then I started planning my attack. How would I appropriately express my concerns to the teacher? Did I want to become THAT mom? What are my rights in this situation? Can I request that my child read a different book if this particular science isn't a part of first grade curriculum?

When I heard these thoughts in my head, I changed course. We knew this would happen. We expected it. We weren't afraid of it. Maybe we didn't expect it this early, or this covertly, but it did, and my up-in-arms mentality was sounding too much like the image we are trying to overcome by simply being Christ-followers in a public school in the first place.

So, we talked about it. I pointed out phrases like "scientists think" and "scientists are not sure." We talked about why they "think" life began 3.5 billion years ago, or why they "believe" the earth is 4.6 billion years old. I asked her what she knew about the beginning of the earth, and what might be missing from this book.

And guess what? She got it.

We read Genesis 1 and discussed how maybe God DID use exploding gases and compressed matter and whatever else the scientists think was involved. We talked about how, if you don't believe in God, you have to figure out some way to explain how we got here. We held up the Bible, and we held up her book, and we asked her to point to the one that is always true.

And she understood. She was able to grasp that man tries, but cannot always be true - and so when man's word disagrees with God's word, we go with God's word.

I don't think she's scarred for life. I don't think she experienced any kind of crisis of faith. If anything, I think it was a tremendous opportunity at a very young age to experience a little testing. She had a chance to think critically about something important, and to learn to respect differences of belief while still sticking to her guns.

Crisis averted.