Kids ask a lot of questions. Ask any parent, teacher, grandparent, or babysitter. They are curious little minds, and they always want to know “why?” I’m sure the questions have ramped up since Coronavirus entered our reality.

What is a virus? Am I safe? Why can’t I see my friends?

I’ve seen a lot of great articles on how to explain the actual virus to our kids, but what happens when their questions go deeper?

This week, I was reaching out to some of our families to check-in and see how they’re doing. I called a mom this week and you could tell kids were close by — I could hear them chatting and asking her for something. That’s pretty much become every parent’s norm, kid attached to your leg, calling your name at all hours of the day. She told me they were hanging in there, but that she had a question she wanted to ask me without the kids around. I told her to text or email anytime, and I’d be happy to help.

Later that day, I received a text from her. She said that her kindergartener is really missing his friends, and is ready to go back to school. She said on a walk he shared with her that he didn’t believe in God anymore because if God created everything, then He created this virus and it’s the reason he can’t see his friends. Her heart broke, and so did mine when I read that. But I was also glad that he was asking hard questions and felt comfortable expressing his feelings.

Explaining a pandemic to kids is hard. Explaining why bad things happen in the world is hard too.

If you are having this same question, or something similar, come up in your house, here is my best shot at explaining it to your kids:

• Start by validating their feelings. “You are such a smart little kid for asking such a big question. I’m glad you feel comfortable asking me anything.”
• Talk about how God wouldn’t ever want to do anything to harm us or make us sick, but unfortunately, there are bad things like this virus that happen in the world. Reassure them that you and other helpers in the world are working to keep everyone, especially them, safe.
• Talk about that when things like this happen, God brings good out of everything. Our job is to look around to see what good things are happening all around us (more family time at home, nightly family dinners, spending time outside, neighbors helping each other, etc.)
• One great example in the Bible that you can read to them is Noah’s Ark (Genesis 6-9). In this story, a flood came that covered the Earth. Noah, his family, and the animals experienced hardship — they were on an ark for 40 days! But through it all, God spared them and gave them a rainbow as a sign of His promise that He will always protect us.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen rainbows (both literal and figuratively) throughout the past two weeks. Last week we had a huge thunderstorm, and God showed us He’s thereby painting a double rainbow in the sky. I’ve also seen countless chalk rainbows all over the sidewalks, reminding me that joy is all around us.

I’ve also seen figurative rainbows everywhere — in our daily nature walks, making memories splashing in the creek with my four-year old, feeling the wind on my face. These little things have brought me so much joy during this time and are probably things that I would have overlooked just two short weeks ago.

So, keep an eye out for your rainbow, whatever it may be.

Always remember that even when we’re going through hard things, God is always reminding us that He’s here.

We just have to look.