My Love, God Is Everywhere
As a child, I had a fear of a tree in our backyard. It was gnarled and had a hollow in it that looked like gremlins would pour out of in the dark. The fear of this tree was at its height around the time I heard about God being everywhere. I had attended my first VBS and was still snapping my fingers to the songs while remembering that God is everywhere. I tried really hard to imagine that God was around that hollow, keeping the gremlins away. It took a little time for my brain to develop to the point where I could actually understand that God being everywhere also included God being with me. There was still a lot of work to be done in faith formation materials for children in the early 1980s, and I wish that ‘little me’ had known that ‘future me’ was going to have My Love, God Is Everywhere, helping to explain to children just what this beautiful, if ambiguous phrase means.
My Love, God Is Everywhere is a book written for children to help them understand that God is everywhere. God meets us through all of our emotions, loves us, and abides with us. The authors introduce us to a child who is asking her mother about where God is in various circumstances of her life. Her mother offers reassurance, along with specifics about how God walks alongside us when we’re scared, misunderstood, loud, and making poor choices. The mother discusses how we are not bad, even if we sometimes make bad choices, as well as walks the reader through how God is in all of us, having made each of us in God’s image. The gently rhyming text pairs with soft illustrations, leaving the reader with a book to turn to over and over again.
My Love, God is Everywhere is a book that can be used in several different ways in your ministry. This would be a perfect touchstone book to bring out every few months with your children’s faith formation classes, reminding the children how God abides with us. You could spread out the reading of the whole book over a series of children’s moments, providing you with a sermon series for your youngest disciples. This would be a lovely addition to your children’s library and would be equally at home in your prayground. It would also be a wonderful choice to use as a gift for new members with children.
