One year for Christmas, all I wanted was a Cabbage Patch Kid. They had come out with a new version that had corn silk hair instead of the string yarn hair that was useless when it came to brushing or styling. After all, isn't that what most girls want to do with a doll. Comb its hair? I went to the local mall with my parents and climbed into the big burly man's lap and looked him in the eye.

"I want a corn silk Cabbage Patch Kid, " I said, making sure that his eyes told me he was familiar with the doll. I left the mall feeling pretty confident that Santa was going to make good on his end of the bargain.

When Christmas morning finally arrived I ran down the stairs eying all of the wrapped packages on the floor. I knew the shape of the doll box quite well and wasn't able to scout it out. I had that nervous excitement pouring over every inch of me as I eagerly anticipated finding the box amidst the heaps of gifts. Even though I couldn't see it right away, I knew it was there. It was under something or behind something. Or, maybe Santa hid it somewhere special as a big surprise at the end.

I opened all of my gifts and while they were nice, they weren't nice enough to make me forget about my Cabbage Patch kid with the corn silk hair. After the last gift had been handed to my brother and we watched him open it, I waited.

I waited to hear my parents say, "Oops! We almost forgot! Santa left a special gift in the (insert whatever plausible room here) for you Maria!" But as the wrapping paper was all balled up and thrown away and my brother was busy playing with his toys, I realized, there was no doll. Santa knew that was what I wanted. I made it very clear to him. Why would he do this to me? And then it all came into focus. He couldn't really exist because if he did, he would never disappoint me like this. It was then obvious. Santa was a big fat hoax.

It is no wonder there are so many people who say that they don't believe in God. For whatever reason, adults find it necessary to tell children about how God is good and does good things to those who believe in Him. If you ask God for something and pray about it, God will give you what you ask for. Maybe adults still believe this because that is what they were told by their parents. But this is like telling the fairy tale version of the Bible and skipping the part with the villain because it might be too scary for young ears. Then when those children grow up and ask God for something and they don't get it, well, the only rational conclusion is that he isn't real.

I took this from a comment on a friends blog:

But for some to preach that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful merciful entity that pulls the strings of every single thing that happens to every human being, every moment of every day, is ludicrous. Perhaps creation was the brain child of some superior being, but I cannot believe that an all-knowing, entity does not know that 250,000 men, women & children will be killed by a tsunami that could have been stopped with the wave of an all-powerful, merciful hand. And, to award the saving of a single life to the entity that could have prevented the entire disaster is ridiculous.

By this thought process, one would then assume that in our world there would be no sickness, death, crime, pain, suffering, loss, etc. Just because God can do something doesn't mean that he will. Everything does happen for a reason and the Bible talks about what happens to us if we sin. We, every last one of us, are sinners. We knowingly sin against God and the price we pay is a tsunami that kills 250,000 men, women, and children. The Bible doesn't hide the reality of this. For some reason, we like to hide behind the cloak of God being Santa Claus and then when we are hurting and God doesn't take all of our pains away we feel like we have been duped just like when we realized that Santa isn't real.

I think we, as adults, parents, grandparents, and friends need to share the truth about God. The good, the bad, and the sometime hard to stomach truth about God. We can and should pray to God for His will. His will should be what we desire. We can ask for patience, understanding, and peace for when we don't understand His plan for us. I don't want my children to grow up feeling like God owes them something. God created us. He gave us life. We will always be indebted to Him.