What a Precious Night for our Family

I don’t get very “churchy” on my blog. It’s not at all because I’m ashamed of my God or my Faith. I’m sometimes ashamed of my Christian brothers and sisters and of myself, though, because we fail miserably at our attempts to be like Christ.

But let me be very clear. I love Jesus. I love that Jesus lived faithfully, loves radically and offers grace freely. The details beyond that are not nearly as important to me. It’s not about rules or judgment of one another. It’s about love. It’s about a God who loves us so much, it makes no sense. It’s about our responsibility to show that love to others.

Raising the peapod squad to know the love of Jesus has always been at the very tip top of our list of parenting priorities. When we dedicated ourselves as a family under God’s guidance in May of 2005, we meant every word we recited before our family and friends. We have prayed that having them grow up surrounded by people of faith would encourage them to choose that for themselves one day.

Our faith tradition doesn’t baptize infants. We believe that acceptance of Christ and the subsequent decision to join a community of faith through baptism is a personal choice that cannot be made for you by a parent or anyone else. It doesn’t happen as a result of completion of a class or by following a list of guidelines. We believe the choice to accept or reject Christ is intentional. It’s an invitation for Jesus to be in your life forever. It’s receiving the free and undeserved gift of God’s grace.

Several weeks ago, Snap Pea told me that he needed to ask our pastor some “stuff” about having Jesus as his “sabior.” Stifling the urge to giggle at his innocent mispronunciation of “savior,” I encouraged him to take the initiative on his own rather than having me do the talking for him. He bravely approached the pastor and asked him some “stuff” and later informed me he still had some “stuff” to think about before he would be ready to decide. We didn’t bring it up again because we wanted to be certain this was his choice…not something we were forcing onto him.

Fast forward to tonight. We were having dinner at my parents’ house (my father is also a pastor). Snap brought it up again and said he was ready to become a Christian and asked Pop if he would help him with the words. He sat in Pop’s lap and prayed the most precious prayer I’ve ever heard. He told God he was sorry for doing bad things sometimes, thanked Him for sending Jesus to die on the cross for him and asked Him to be in his heart forever.

He quickly turned to Split and Sweet and said, “Ok…we’ve talked about this before. You can do this. Pop will help you, too.” And just like that, they were praying similarly beautiful prayers.

They’re six. Do they understand what it’s all about? Probably not. Do I? Does anyone fully understand? I doubt it. But it’s not about understanding. It’s about believing. It’s about faith. And my three miracles who have been prayed for daily since before they were even conceived BELIEVE. Of that I am certain.

The sweetest day of my life was January 21, 2005 when my heart was filled with the love of three tiny babies. The sweetest night of my life was February 4, 2011 when their hearts were filled with the love of God.

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