She devours fact books like they’re pancakes on Saturday mornings.

Like how many seconds in a year.  What polar bears eat. When Pluto was “discovered”.  And why the Titanic sunk.

She asks, “Why DID the Titanic sink, Mom?”

So I try to bring up my memory of James Cameron’s behemoth  film of 1997 and what I remember of an iceberg ripping a hole the size of New York in the side of the ocean liner. I explain that icebergs float with 90 percent of their mass beneath the water.  I don’t tell her about Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet with blue lips in the water or about the lower class passengers drowning below deck.

“Did babies die?” She wonders.

“I’m not sure if there were babies on the ship,” I lie.

But then I realize that she can know that. She’s almost eight and she can know that.

I explain to her that there weren’t enough life boats and that the rich people stayed in staterooms with windows. That the poorer people weren’t allowed on the boats before the rich people escaped.

She decided, “I think babies died, Mom.”

“They might have, honey. I’m sorry. Does that make you sad?” I asked her.

She sighed the sigh of realizing that the world is not perfect, that people do bad things, that earth isn’t always filled with butterflies and ponies in a meadow.

“Yes. That makes me sad,” as she moves on to another page in her book. Insects’ olfactory glands or the lowest point on the globe.

But I’m left with a catch in my throat. Not because of the sinking of the Titanic almost 100 years ago and the babies that probably died. But because my daughter is quickly learning that hatred exists outside of the tiny world of her school playground and that there are bad, evil people in the world.  And soon she’ll find out that even I can’t protect her from it all.

Babies die.

Those with the least money are given the short end of all the sticks.

Sometimes there aren’t enough life boats.

But I’m here, as her mother, to help her put the difficult pieces of the puzzle together, to guide her wild thoughts and to point her to the Answer that I can’t fully explain.

There is Hope and His name is Jesus.

*** Beth in the Heartland won the Shannon Etheridge giveaway. She says:

“Self-control…probably the fruit of the spirit I struggle with the most. Whether it’s controlling myself when standing before the holiday cookie platter, controlling my tongue when I am frustrated with my in-laws, controlling myself while disciplining my 2 young children…I always, ALWAYS could use more self control. I’m intrigued by these books and will be looking them up at my local library. Thanks for the tip.”

Congratulations, Beth!!