Does Jesus have a lot of arms?

We were driving home from a morning out shopping with Mom today and the girls were watching an airplane take off as we drove by the airport. This began a conversation in the backseat about how they want to go on an airplane. Emma flew once when she was 1 1/2 and of course, doesn't remember it and Hannah has never flown. They asked me why they had never been on a plane and I explained that our family doesn't live that far away and it is cheaper to drive. Well, they began discussing how they could somehow get on a plane. Things like emptying their piggy bank were discussed, etc. Then Hannah says, "I just wish I was in heaven right now because then I'm sure I could fly. " This led to another frequent topic of conversation that they like to discuss: Jesus' return. Hannah said, "When Jesus returns maybe we will fly up to meet him." Emma replied that He won't be returning until she is very, very, very, old. (This led to another discussion about how the Bible says that we won't know when Jesus will come back. People will be getting married, having babies, going to school etc. and that Jesus could very well come back right then as we were driving home from the mall. I think they were a little shocked by that. I guess we all picture ourselves growing old before we meet Jesus.)

Emma then proceeds to ask me if there are a lot of Jesuses. (Is that the right plural of that word?????) I asked her what the Bible said about that and she said, there is only one. This perplexed her though. Her next question was "Does Jesus have a lot of arms?" (I knew where this was headed!) I said, no I'm pretty sure He only has two! Well then Mommy, how will he pick us all up and take us with Him to heaven? Hannah then chimes in, "Well Emma if Jesus wants us to be with him, he could just snap his fingers and we'd be there, but I sure hope we get to fly up to meet him!"

This reminds me of another post I wrote several months ago where Emma was trying to fully grasp Jesus' return and how we would get to heaven if he returned while we were alive. She asked me then if he had really long arms to reach down from heaven and pick her up. I am reminded that children think so concretely and that she somehow needs it to "make sense" for her to understand it. She wants a concrete explanation of how she will one day move from this earth to heaven. While I don't know exactly how it will happen, I tried to explain that the Bible says it will happen in the blink of an eye. One moment I think we will be here and the next we will be with Jesus. We probably won't even be aware of how we got there. I think Hannah was a little disappointed. She said he could snap his finger and we would be with him and I told her that I thought that is how fast it would be.

She sighed, "Oh man, I was hoping I could fly!"

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