It’s the part of The Biggest Story when the narrator says, “The biggest surprise to everyone was that the Chosen One of God was chosen by God to die.” Without fail, my six year old says it in a voice thick with emotion: “That’s not very nice.” Her young mind is trying to reconcile two seemingly opposing ideas—God is good, but he sent someone to die, and that’s not nice. I’m always struck that she uses the word “nice,” because of course it’s not “nice,” but how do you respond to these kinds of things? This is the stuff that rolls around in parents’ heads, along with “How many snacks do these kids need?” and “How long has this chicken nugget lived in this car?”

Good things aren’t always “nice,” but I’m not sure how to help my six year old understand. Honestly, I’m not even sure how to help myself understand. I know God has been doing a work in my heart for years, exposing all the ways I’ve kept peace instead of made peace, and in doing so ironically inviting further division, corruption, and conflict. It’s an ever-present lesson and battle, a bright flashlight I keep on my tool belt that never fails to reveal lots and lots of darkness. “See that horror, Caroline? Make peace there.”

It was a hard thing he said, and they could barely digest it. It upended things they thought they knew, and moreover—it just didn’t make sense. “Who can listen to it?” they grumbled, and he heard. It was ironic. He made the ears that wouldn’t hear him; he perfectly discerned their offended mumbles.

Many of those who’d previously followed closely stopped following that day. Maybe it was too much. Too intense, too confusing, too overwhelming, too rattling to their sense of comfort and stability. Why look to this guy for truth when there were options that clashed less with their sensibilities, that asked them to uproot less of their thinking, that asked them to give less of themselves?