A Recap of Aaron's 8th birthday

I surprised Aaron, by making him a baseball themed cake. He was only expecting a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

We invited a couple of his friends over for a "make your own pizza" dinner and birthday cake.

He got a book from one of his favorite book series.

A Webkinz caterpillar.

Money from Mamaw and Papaw.

Money (and an awesome frog book) from Nanny and Pupup.

Aaron has been saving his money since this past summer ... so he mostly got gifts of money. He's not quite to his goal yet. (He wants to buy an ipod touch) He'll get there eventually.

He chose pasta, sauce, and meatballs for his birthday dinner and Daddy took him to the Olive Garden for his special father/son birthday lunch.
I can't believe he's 8!!

Happy 8th Birthday, Aaron!!!

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

It's so hard to believe that you are 8 years old! We are so proud of you, Aaron! I am so thankful for your sweet spirit and loving heart. I love how much you care about others and think about how you can help others. You make me smile each and every day! You have a special God-given gift in encouraging others with your words. I am constantly encouraged by your kind words toward me.

I love you, sweet boy!!

I got my first deer

We hit a deer the other night...it was not fun. Thankfully, no one was hurt (unless you count the deer). It could have been much worse. I was going 55 mph when I hit it.
The minivan is being fixed...and I might even be able to drive again at night...although right now it's a little too fresh.
Martin saw it and was in the process of warning me when it happened. Aaron had the hardest time with it. He is so tender hearted and was devastated that we hurt the deer. Jonathan was not at all upset...he's a tough boy. Rosalie didn't see anything...and was fine until we got home and she saw the damage to the car. She started crying at that point.
I'm so thankful for God's protection over us. It could have been do much worse!

Martin's Testimony

As promised, I am going to share Martin's Testimony. These are his words straight from his mouth. I only did the typing.

It started 3 years ago when I told my Mama and my Daddy that I wanted to be like Jesus. Everyday since then, I've been struggling with whether God existed or not. I wanted to believe it for myself and not because Mama and Daddy told me to believe it. I told Mama that if God would show me a miracle I would believe. 

On Wednesday, November 14, 2012, we were listening to the song Power of the Cross, in the car on the way to the church building. While we were listening to the song, I heard a voice in my head saying, "Believe it now, Believe it now!!!"I told Mama about it and she stopped the car and we prayed together. During those 3 years, I had no peace because I was struggling. Now that I have become a Christian, I finally have peace.

Mama told me later that day - that the day before I became a Christian, she had spent time praying over the song, Power of the Cross. She prayed that God would use it to move me and speak to me, so that I would become a believer. That's when I realized that God had given me my miracle.

Intellect vs. Heart Part Three

I mentioned that Martin said that he just knew that he could believe that God existed if God would give him a shout. I told him that in my experience, God has always spoken to me through His Word and through gentle whispers. He still insisted that he needed a shout. I am so thankful that we serve a God who is not limited to my experience. It wasn't but a couple days later that God gave me a shout.

The worship pastor at our church called me one Saturday night to ask me if I would sing lead on a song the next day in church to fill in for someone who was sick. I said that I'd be happy to do that. So, I put the children to bed and went to my room to practice the song. I sang through the song one time and then began to have a quiet time of prayer. I prayed that when I helped lead in worship the next day that it would be all about Him and not about me. I prayed that God would increase and that I would decrease. I finished my time of prayer and then began to practice the song for the next day. 2 minutes later, I was completely unable to sing a single note. My singing voice was gone. Strangely enough, I could still talk ... I just couldn't sing. Of course, my first thought was ... THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!! Clearly, though, God was trying to teach me something, so I calmly drank an entire glass of water and went to bed. At that point, I just needed to trust that God would restore my voice by the time that I needed it. (especially considering that I was already the back-up!)

The next morning my voice was still all out of sorts, but by the time I needed to sing in the first service my voice was fully restored. 

Was that God's way of sending Martin a shout? I shared the whole story with Martin and while he thought it was absolutely amazing ... his reply was, "That is pretty amazing, but I really want the shout to happen to me ... and that happened to you!"

Okay. I will not be discouraged!! God is faithful and will see us both through this process. I was humbled to see God's mighty hand working in my own life in the area of trusting Him. I knew that He was busy working on Martin's heart!

A few days later, I got all the music for the Thanksgiving service at our church and was listening to it and learning the songs that I didn't already know. The one new song in the set that I didn't know was called The Power of the Cross by Shelley Johnson. The song deals with the contrast of being in Christ and being without Christ. ("Once in darkness, now in light. Once bound, now free, once a sinner now a saint... That's the Power of the cross ... see the chains fall")

I read through the words one time and immediately started praying over the song. I prayed that God would use that song to move Martin ... that He would reveal Martin's great need for the Power of the Cross!

The very next day as we were driving down the road, I played the song for the children for the first time. We got about half way through the song when Martin said, "Mama, Mama I have voices in my head saying, BELIEVE NOW, BELIEVE NOW!!!"

I said, "Are you serious, Martin, because if you are serious, I will pull over right now!!"

He said, "Yes, I am serious!!"

So, I pulled over, put on my hazard lights, got Martin out of the van and we kneeled down on our knees in the Lowes Foods Parking Lot and he prayed that God would save him.

I am humbled. I am grateful. I am amazed at the AWESOME God that we serve. 

God wasn't only SHOUTING into Martin's life. He was SHOUTING into my life. Tomorrow, I will share Martin's testimony. He wrote it last week and the words are all his and from his perspective. His words are precious! 

All glory to God for his hand in our lives. He cares about the details of our lives. He doesn't always work in ways that are predictable. He can do far more than we can imagine. Martin has struggled for a long time, but now he is at perfect peace. He told me a couple days later that he finally has peace. 

God won Martin over for His kingdom and now I am praying that Martin will be an instrument in His hands.

Intellect vs. Heart Part Two

So, what now?

It started with subtle comments here and there from Martin. He would say things like, "Is there such a thing as someone who doesn't  believe in anything at all?" or "I just don't understand how God has no beginning." Philosophical questions challenging all that we have ever taught him started surfacing every single day. At first, I wondered if it was just an emotional reaction from him. Perhaps he was just trying to hurt me because he knows how deeply I desire to follow God and walk in His ways. There were times that I definitely think his mood was driving the rash and hurtful things he said. It didn't take long for me to realize, though, that he really was digging for deeper philosophical answers to the hard questions that I am not so sure that I've even taken the time to consider. 

I am not the deep philosophical thinker that my husband is. I accepted the truth of the gospel the very first time I heard it. I followed with a child-like faith and that child-like faith has remained intact until this very day. 

Martin has approached this entire issue with a desire to explore those deep philosophical questions and come up with some concrete answers that will satisfy the intellectual needs that he has. 

He has been frustrated to the point of tears over it. We had been having pretty deep conversations about it almost on a daily basis. There was a crazy battle going on inside of him. It was a battle between his intellectual desire for answers and his heart. He would tell me that there is a key to all of it and he just needed to find the key. He has also said that he just wished that God would send him a SHOUTING sign that He is really there. (I've had the opportunity to share with Martin many examples in my own life of God making himself known to me ... and that it never happened in a shouting way ... in my experience it almost always came as more of a whisper)

Rich and I are still stood by our guiding principle to not coerce him. He is a very intelligent boy. Every time he wanted to talk about it, we talked. I prayed for him constantly. Martin had a deep desire to see something concrete that would prove to him that there is a loving God out there somewhere, so my prayers for him were that God would reveal himself to Martin.

So, what did I do with a 10 year old child, who had been home schooled his entire life, that I have poured myself into, taught scriptures every day of his life, prayed for him every day since he was conceived ... when he started to question everything I'd ever taught him?

I REJOICED! I WEEPED! I PRAYED! And I GAVE THANKS that I had a child on my hands who thought so deeply and independently about such important issues. I RESTED in knowing that God had His hand on Martin. I ANTICIPATED the day when Martin would have worked out his salvation and have complete confidence that he is saved ... and he wouldn't have to rely on my memory of him being saved. 

I'd much rather he work these things out in a satisfactory way right now as a 10 year old in my home than as a 20 year old living away from me. As hard as this road was to walk at times, I hope that all of my children ask these hard questions, work them out in a way that brings them to a greater knowledge of who God is,  a deeper faith, and a stronger desire to follow and be obedient to a loving God.

To be continued...

Intellect vs. Heart Part One

I have not had much time for blogging lately. The older my children get the more time I seem to spend in the car taking them to and from band or to and from baseball practice. So, my time at home is spent schooling, cleaning, or cooking. (and with the gluten free needs in our home, I spend even more time in the kitchen than before ... and that's hard for anyone to believe!)

I have been dealing with an issue over the last few months, though, that I want to address. The topic is salvation. The person is Martin. About 3 years ago, Martin spent an entire day wrestling over salvation and God giving him a new heart. He spent the day asking questions and mulling over Jesus and His perfection and even started crying at one point telling me that he wished that he could be like Jesus ... because Jesus never sinned. He seemed to be so keenly aware of the sin in his life that he knew he wasn't able to obtain perfection and needed to be saved. So, that night before he went to bed, he prayed a beautiful prayer and asked God for a new heart. I wrote down every detail of that entire day, so that I could remember the beautiful innocence of it and the prayer that came out of his mouth when he asked for a new heart.

2 things:

1. Rich and I have made it our policy to flood our children with the truth of God's Word. 

2.We have a strict NO COERCING policy when it comes to salvation. So, we teach, but don't push or ask them if they want to be saved. We want them to come to us, and seek out salvation on their own. We have the same philosophy about Baptism. We want it to be their idea ... not something that we suggest.

That is exactly what happened that day. Martin kept seeking me out with many questions all throughout the day. I answered thoroughly and would move on to whatever else I was doing. He kept coming back and asking more. It seemed real and genuine and everything we had hoped it would be. 

I'll admit it. I am a skeptic when it comes to young children and salvation.  I was a young child of only 7 years old when I was saved, and I was saved after hearing the gospel for the very first time. I never doubted my own salvation. I knew that it was very real for a couple of reasons. I never forgot the moment that I made the decision, and from the moment that I was saved I became a new person. I immediately knew that my life was forever changed by God's mercy and grace. I knew that I should be reading my Bible and praying every day. And I did. I didn't have to be reminded or told to do those things. I wanted to do those things. At the time I was saved, we didn't go to church regularly and we were getting ready to move to Iceland. We didn't go to church while we lived in Iceland, but even without a church, I knew that I needed to have a relationship with a loving God. So, even though my own experience was as a young child, when it came to my own children I still remained skeptical. (my experience is that I can get my child to agree to just about anything I say to them ... which is another reason we have a no coercion policy!)

Back to Martin ... after Martin asked for a new heart ... nothing really changed. I didn't see real fruit in his life. I began to doubt whether or not his life had really changed. I doubted whether or not he really understood what salvation was all about. 

Fast forward to today ... 

Martin is now 10 years old and has no recollection of that day that he asked for a new heart.  I even let him read my detailed account of that day ... even the words he prayed ... and he has no memory of it whatsoever!

It is as if it never happened.

As a fairly intellectual 10 year old boy with no memory of what I thought was his salvation experience, he was struggling each and every day with deep philosophical questions on the existence of God. For the past 3 months we have been having exhausting philosophical conversations that sometimes felt as though they were leading nowhere. 

So, what do you when you have a child who is clearly seeking, exploring, and even disputing some of the truth that you have been speaking into his life?

To be continued...