July 1, 2013

 Today, was not just an ordinary day.. Carson and Andrew wrote their first stories about three kittens and read them during snack time today

 These girls live for snack time. :)

Abigail working hard in some dry erase numbers and shapes books I found on Clearance at Burke's.

We started out with this little Christian History. It is significant to us because the Lord has given us two great families here in Morehead that are Gideons, the Hattons & the Browns. They are dear to our hearts and we rejoiced to hear that today was the day in 1899 that they formed a like minded group with the goal of distributing God's Word everywhere they went. The mission was saving the lost through personal witness and distribution of God's word. They began distributing in 1908 and today have over 300,000 members who have distributed 1.8 BILLION bibles and counting. In fact, they say that for every second 2 bibles of God's word is being handed out through the Gideon Organization. This is so awesome! I believe that the Lord can use his Word to reveal himself to the lost and call them to himself because that is what He did with me. I went to a Southern Nazarene University Basketball camp in 8th grade and was given a bible. It was a camp for Champions. I went for basketball and yet the Lord used it, the people there, and His word to pursue me and begin to draw me near to Him. I had never had a copy of a bible before. My father had one and I had used it a little bit but it seemed so hard to understand (it was a King James Version.) I love what the Gideons are doing for the glory of God because I know that the Lord can use His word to reveal, convict and draw his lost children to himself like he did me. 

 

The past couple of days we have been praying a lot and talking a lot about losing a loved one and death. Some of our dear friends in Cushing, the Kennedy family, lost a dear mother and grandmother on Saturday. Our hearts have grieved with them and at the same time rejoiced for we know that Ms. Shala is now with Jesus. Every morning at the beginning of our day we spend time in our bibles together. We are reading through the gospel of John and really loving taking it slow and talking about God's word together. Today's scripture was over the last few scriptures before Chapter 3 starts and we were talking about how Jesus knows the hearts of all people. Our scripture this week in our curriculum is John 8:12  "I am the light of the world, he who follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life." When we were recapping our praise and prayer requests this morning and talking through again praying for the Kennedy family and their good friend Caden, I told them Ms.Shala's funeral would be on Wednesday. They asked, "What is a funeral?" I was silent a moment. They have never been to a funeral. So the next 45 minutes we just talked about what a funeral is..I explained that there really are two types of funerals: one is a celebration and one is wrought with great despair. I went on to explain the difference and why they were different. I have been to both types of funerals. Believers in Jesus, who have the hope of Christ, usually have a joyful service that has tears but there is also great celebration in the truth that the person who just died because of their relationship with Jesus Christ is now with him in the place He went to prepare for us. Why? Because they believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. They believe what God's word says is true. They know the glory of their inheritance. They understand amazing grace and the promise of salvation. Funerals of unbelievers are wrought with despair and weeping. How could they not be? They have no hope. They do not know what lies in store for them. They do not live knowing this place we live in here on this earth is only temporary. They walk in darkness because they do not have the light of life. I then was able to share the gospel story again with my children. Such great news that God loved us so much that He sent his one and only son to die for us and pay the penalty for our sin. John 3:16. There is nothing, nothing, nothing we can to do earn our way to heaven. Satan is so crafty and tricky and leads people to believe the lie that we can earn our way by being good. Even my 7 and 9 year old understand that we cannot ever be good enough. We make bad choices. Jesus came because we need a savior. Jesus name means THE LORD SAVES! How cool is that? We talked a lot about how the Lord saves. Nothing we can do but only receive God's amazing grace. We talked about agreeing with God that we are a sinner and that we cannot save ourselves, we talked about who Jesus is and what He has done for us and then we talked about our response. We all get the opportunity to choose life or death forever in the eternal sense. We get to choose Jesus or the World which is ultimately a disguised Satan. Ms. Shala had to choose and we rejoiced in knowing that her choice was Jesus. We know that because of her walk with the Lord. We know that because of the way she was a reflection of her heavenly father. We know that because she told her family and others about her relationship with Jesus. We talked a lot. I could tell that Carson was really processing it all and becoming heavy hearted. I believe the Lord has been revealing himself to Carson this last year. It has been exciting to hear the questions he has and the spark of curiosity about God's word as we continue to share it with him. We talked about confessing (agreeing with God) and committing our lives to live as Jesus did. Just last week we learned that Jesus said you will know my disciples by the way that they love, live and serve. The boys learned what the WWJD means which is kind of funny because they had no clue. WWJD was big time when Dustin and I were in junior high...it was everywhere. It felt a little strange (well, it made me feel extremely old) to teach this from my teacher's book this last week. So back to Carson...I looked at him and saw the Lord was moving in his heart. He told me, "Mom, I really want to do that I am just afraid of everyone looking at me when I get baptized. I know who Jesus is and I want him to be my Savior." Well, this sappy mom just lost it and started crying...and I am pretty sure I freaked him out. I told the kids we were going to take a book break and I took Carson into his room alone to talk a little more with him and call his father. We decided that after all of the other children are in bed tonight we will spend some more time with Carson and talk with Him about what the Holy Spirit is revealing to Him. I ended the phone call and took my first born son's hands and prayed with him and over him. (And yes, I was still crying..controlled crying, but crying indeed) I am not sure there is a greater joy than sharing the gospel with your children. Sharing who Jesus is to you and who He desires to be to them. After we finished praying, I remembered that Denice had told me it was actually her mother's birthday today, July 1st. I shared that with Carson and told him that Ms. Shala would have found great joy in hearing how God is speaking to His heart and how He is listening on her birthday. When we joined the other crew then shortly after Andrew suggested we celebrate Ms. Shala too on Wednesday like they would be in Oklahoma since we couldn't be with them. What a great idea! On Wednesday we will have cake to celebrate the life of a very special lady who loved Jesus and was actually a wonderful cake maker herself. Today, was definitely not an ordinary day but it was a sweet day as we continue to see the Lord's hand upon us working in all and through all. Ephesians 1:23, Romans 8:28