Thursday, June 5, 2014

The Day My Son Became My Brother

It's like a West Virginia riddle.

Only this is much more significant.

Allow me to rant a little bit before we get going, mkay?

You know that saying about how expectations ruin everything?

It's totally true.

In my mind's eye, I always imagined the day my child came to know Christ as significant.

Of me and my husband having a beautiful family Bible open on our laps reading the Scriptures to him.

Of all of us wearing white.

An angellic white light surrounding us...

As we calmly knelt before a good God and listened to our son pray a beautifully poetic Sinner's Prayer.

And let me tell you, that image almost stole me of something precious today.

Because today, this little guy prayed a simple prayer and asked the Savior of the world to save his toddler-sinful soul.

It started around Easter.  This was the first year he really learned about Jesus dying on the cross for him.

This was the first year it hit him.

Jesus DIED.

For our sins.

And then the questions started.

What is a sin?

Who sins?

Did Jesus sin?

And this week, it has finally all come together.

Like an algebraic equation that he finally understood all the parts of.

X(sin) + Y (Jesus) = salvation or in his innocent mind - heaven.

Because that's how simple faith is to a child.

Problem + Fix = PERFECTION.

So today, as all the pieces were finally adding up on our way home from the gym, I was guarded.

This was not how I pictured it.

I was still in my gym clothes.

Techy was at work!

Sunshine Baby was still wildly flinging cracker remains all over everything.

But I could not stop it.

It was there.

Staring me in the face.

He understood everything.

And then he said, "But mommy, I want to go to heaven too."

And it was all I could do to hold the tears back.

I am so unfit, so unworthy, so unprepared for this moment.

I didn't even have my Bible nearby.

But the beauty of salvation is that it doesn't depend on the presence of a Bible.

It doesn't depend on worthy people.

Or perfect mommies.

It rests in Jesus.

So when Little Man, in the middle of his Mac N Cheese, sat his fork down and bowed his head and said the words, "Dear Jesus, Please forgive me for my sins and come in my heart and save me - Amen" I have to believe that that is exactly what happened.

Jesus doesn't call for anything more than a simple childlike faith.  An understanding of our sin and our need of a savior.

And that, that is worth more than anything.

I am sure we have many more questions to answer.

And I am sure that there will be uncertainty and probably a reaffirmation of this many times over.

But today, my heart nearly exploded from the fact that God uses faulty and frail people for such a huge thing.

I'm so thankful.

And in awe.

And that my friends, that is the story of how my son became my brother.

In Christ.

A new creation.

Pray that I can raise him worthy of this calling.