Heavy

A couple of weeks ago, I was alone in the car with 4 year old Iris. This conversation took place:

Iris: "Momma, what will happen when there is no more food?"
Me: "When we run out of food, I will need to go back to the grocery store and get more."
Iris: "No, I mean when there is no more food anywhere in the whole world. What will happen then?"
Me: [stunned silence] "We will have to depend on God to take care of us."

Please know, that during that long 'stunned silence' the gears in my brain were in overdrive. A flurry of activity where I was attempting grasp the gravity of the question, coupled with the innocence of the inquisitor, while operating a motor vehicle.

Sometimes I feel completely, 100%, ill-equipped to be responsible for raising my daughter. Yes, she is like me in many ways, but she is so unlike me in such important and impressionable and awesome ways. Her empathy, her ability to think beyond herself, her overall concern with matters beyond her 4 years... it boggles my mind. I'm still working on cultivating those traits in myself. She just comes by it naturally.

Tonight I was putting her to bed while Timm was taking care of Asher's bedtime routine. We were reading Corduroy together. She blind-sided me again. She stammered trying to find the exact words to express what it was that was on her mind. It clearly was weighing heavily, seeing how carefully she tried to choose just the right way to phrase her question. I can't remember it word for word, but this is the gist:

Iris: "Jesus made everything, and Jesus made people, right? So then Jesus was around before there was people? So who was with Jesus before there was people? Was Jesus all alone?"
Me: [What??]  "Jesus is a part of God. God made people. And Jesus is a person. So God made Jesus to be a person. And Jesus was always with God."

Even though I somehow found the words to sort of answer her question, I am still floored by her even asking it. And I don't even know if I like the explanation I gave her. I know that I was right to not side-step the question by saying giving some sort of non-answer like, "We will have to ask him when we get to Heaven" though that likely could have satisfied her for the time being. Is it possible to explain a triune God to a 4 year old? I don't feel qualified to even be answering questions like this when I don't even understand the answers myself.
Granted, I have not been around a lot of 4 year olds in my lifetime, but I feel like my daughter processes things differently than other preschoolers. I never expected to be faced with such heavy issues at this point. Unlike her peers who annoy their parents with a litany of "Why? Why? Why?" Iris actually absorbs what is told to her, formulates a cause and effect, develops a theory, and searches for answers to well thought-out issues.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it.
But she challenges me in ways deeper than I ever imagined. Her intersection into my life has continually caused me to grow from day one.
I don't know much about God, but I do believe He gave this girl to me for a reason.