Real World Devotionals

Every night, my wife or I read a devotional to my daughter from a book called "My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God's Word in Little Hearts". It's a decent devotional book which is age appropriate for my five-year old, which provides faith lessons by providing a glimpse into the life of Bill and Missy, two Christian youngsters who are just trying to find their way like the rest of us. There's a passage or verse of Scripture which provides the core of the lesson, and there are even a few debrief questions to boot.

The thing is, we've read through this book around five times over, so sometimes when I'm tired and little bored in the evening, I decide to spice things up a little and take some liberties with the original text. Here's the original:

Missy and her friend Janet were playing with Missy's dolls. Janet said, "Let's put the dolls in the bathtub."
Missy said, "Oh no, Mom told me never to put these dolls in the water."
Janet became angry. "Missy," she said, "I'm going home if you won't give the dolls a bath! I'm not going to be your friend anymore!"
Before Missy learned Proverbs 15:1, she would have said, "Well, you just go home. I don't want to be your friend either." But Missy remembered "A soft answer turns away wrath." Then she said to Janet, "I'm sorry. I want you to be my friend, but I can't disobey my mom."
Janet was angrily stomping out the door, but when she heard Missy speak so sweetly, she turned around and smiled. "Oh Missy, I'm sorry. You're my best friend. It was wrong for me to ask you to disobey your mom."

Here's my version:

Missy and her friend Janet were playing with Missy's dolls. Janet said, "Let's put the dolls in the bathtub."
Missy said, "No."
Janet became angry. "Missy," she said, "Don't be such a poopy-head. If you don't put your doll in the water right now, I'm going to punch you in the face."

 (Sophia usually interjects, "That's not what it says.")

... and then since Missy forgot Proverbs 15:1, she said, "Go ahead and leave, Janet. Your breath smells and I know taekwondo so I'll just beat you up. And your dolls are ugly, just like you."

  (Sophia now usually really starts getting irritated, "Daddy, read it the right way!")

Then Janet ran out crying and Missy laughed. And then Missy's mom ran in and spanked her because she was so mean to Janet.

   (Sophia screaming, "Daddy, stop it!")

All right, it's probably not ideal for me to take so many liberties with these devotionals. In my defense, I always tie it up at the end and provide some sort of biblical redemptive lesson at the end of it. The way that I see it, life is not always simple and every scenario my kids are going to encounter is not always going to fit like a glove into the 26 stories that are in the book, so there's probably some benefit of providing some variations to keep the bases covered. Real life is messy that way.

And it make our bedtime stories a little more interesting. Well, at least for me.