"Dad . . . I think you're the tooth fairy."

"What? What would you know? You're only seven! Next thing you'll be telling me that there is no such thing as Santa Claus!"

"Daaaaad!"

I had to think fast. Once they stop believing in the tooth fairy, it's all over. Next thing you know its tattoos from gumball machines and Ollie's onto your car, nose-grinding down the hood with their skateboard. After that come the bad friends from good families and the good-looking girls from the bad part of town. Next they're using your credit card to buy stocks on Scottrade and wandering off to school with your cell phone in their book bag. If someone who doesn't know me or my son, but is looking for his best friend's cousin's biology notes calls me, why should I have to pay?

No. Seven years old is too soon to abandon that blissful cocoon of innocence enjoyed by over-protective fathers everywhere. "Shhhhh! Not so loud! The tooth fairy might hear you and not bring you any more money for your molars and bicuspids!"

What a great dad I am. What other dad goes to such great lengths to expose their children to advanced vocabulary? I can see it now-the final question on my son's MENSA exam: Oak is to tree as bicuspid is to . . . tooth! That's my son-the genius. Started him early. Big vocabulary, you know . . . makes all the difference on the comprehension questions.

"Look. How could I be the tooth fairy? I don't have wings. And besides, what it is I tell you every time you want a candy bar when we're in line at the checkout? You know I don't have the money to be swapping out teeth for kids all over the state!"

"Oh yeah . . . right," he says, looking down, at least marginally convinced. My son wanders off to his room.

For at least one more day, he is safe within the womb of simplicity-able to believe in supernatural, inexplicable things that bring hope. My wife seems pleased that I rescued our son from abandoning faith in the fables of childhood. I pour a cup of coffee and join her at the kitchen table.

"Can you believe he asked that?" she inquires. "Why do they have to grow up so fast? Remember what is was like when you really believed Santa was coming-or the Tooth Fairy had a quarter to put under your pillow? It's a shame. Sad that we have to outgrow our faith in those things."

She notices a strange look coming over my face. "What is it?"

"The teeth."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Where are all the teeth the kids have lost?"

"They're . . . around. I put them in envelopes. Remember?"

"But where are the envelopes now? Where are the teeth?"

She stops mid-sip, the steam from the coffee shadowing her widening eyes. "I don't know . . ." she whispers."

Exactly," I said. "Where did they go?"

That's when it occurs to me-maybe there is a tooth fairy after all. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).

Rich Hadley is an ordained elder serving as associate of discipleship and outreach at the Bluffton First Church of the Nazarene on the Northeastern Indiana District.

Please note: All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of original publication but may have since changed.