How do you explain what your spirit is to a 10 yo?

[MJN]

Thanks!

[Mrs. H.]

Do you mean like soul, or conscience? We tell our older dc (10 and 7) that it's the part of you that loves, feels sad, or feels bad when you do something wrong, or gets angry, or even feels happy or excited. We also tell them it's an invisible part of you that helps you to know right from wrong, and we insert our religious beliefs (God, relationship with Christ, etc.) at that time as well.

[mcconnellboys]

Our soul? It is the eternal part of us that dwells within our earthly bodies while we traverse here. It is the engine that drives conscience, love, and our ability to think, feel, and reason.

Like the shadow that Peter Pan tried to stick back on with soap, it is always with us in life, but flees from us in death, to return to the universal (or Never Land.....)

Like the innocent spirits in Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, it is the goodness that flows back into the eternal cosmos.

Like the spirits freed from Hades in the Golden Compass series, it is the spiritual rejoining of atoms to the whole.

The ancient Greeks (some of them, LOL) believed that the soul seeks always to be reunited with its creator. In fact, Neoplatonist philosophy significantly contributed to the formation of Christian theology during the fifth and sixth centuries.

It is the part of us that is made in His image; the part that makes us redeemable; the hope of goodness even in the darkest of circumstances.

It is the spark within us that gives us life - and hope. It is like a little spring that wells up out of the ground and feeds, eventually, into the ocean.....

My ten year old son says that it is "the thing that keeps me alive" and "that which will go to heaven or hell when I die".

Regena

[Sophia]

We are Christians and teach our children there is a difference between our souls and spirits.
Briefly, our souls refer to our personality, whereas our spirit is where our conscience resides and what allows us to communicate with God.

[strider]

It's the part inside you that thinks things and feels emotions.

[Peek a Boo]

We are Christians and teach our children there is a difference between our souls and spirits.
Briefly, our souls refer to our personality, whereas our spirit is where our conscience resides and what allows us to communicate with God.

we're similar --but I like the way a baptist preacher drew it out: He drew two cirlces and divided them into thirds.

In circle one, he labeled the thirds Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In circle two, he said that since we are created in His image, We too have a similar trinity: Body, Soul and Spirit.

Our bodies will be resurrected, and our soul will either dwell eternally w/ God or apart from God, but we need His Spirit to fill that void.

That spirit that we are missing since the Fall is the Holy Spirit.
Every one has a soul.
Not everyone has the Holy Spirit working in them.

Edited to Add: Not that i agree w/ the Baptist doctrines on all counts, but that little drawing really filled a void for me :) I'm more Lutheran than Baptist, lol.

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other than that I'll just "ITA" w/ everyone else, lol.

[CookieMonster]

There is considerable overlap between soul and spirit in the Bible. Each indicates personal life itself, life after death, emotions, purpose, and commitment: the self. Yet the {Greek word for soul} alone is used of physical life and spiritual growth, and the {Greek word for spirit} is associated with worship, understanding, attitude or disposition, and spiritual power.

Essentially soul and spirit are terms used to focus on the specialness of human beings and individuals. Rather than dividing up a person into separate elements, each seems to look at the same person as a whole, but from a slightly different perspective.

Maybe reading that yourself, will help you to explain it to your son.

[Virginia Dawn]

I would probably say that your spirit is the part of you that makes you alive and unique.

[PariSarah]

It's no more or less "you" than your body. It's just the invisible part of you.

[WendyK]

This is how I think about it... My mother died from ovarian cancer. Even at her worst with the cancer she was still my mom. She still was very much alive. Even after she has passed, she is still alive to me. I hold her memory very dear and little things here and there make me think about her. Her body is not here, but she is still here with me. In other words, we are more than our physical body. Even when my body is broken or sick, I am still Wendy. And I believe that even after my physical body is gone, I am still Wendy.