Friday Night Notes - Mommy Style

by Twinklemoose

The Privilege and Joy of Parenting

Presently, my husband is street preaching in drizzling rain to thousands of mostly resentful people. Meanwhile, I had the privilege this evening to speak about Christ with our tender and inquisitive four year old son. This seems so unfair - sorry Rand!

Earlier today, I mentioned to Son that we'd be attending a baptism tomorrow (Brother Laz is getting baptized... we are all thrilled!). We spoke at length about who gets baptized, how it is done, what is symbolized etc. This evening we talked some more about it and Son got very serious and asked, "When will I get baptized? I... I think I want to do that." I told him at his age people would tend to assume he was just doing what his parents wanted him to do, but that when he was older and sure this was his own choice, then the time would be right.

Mere moments later, as I was shuttling the kids upstairs to brush their teeth and go to bed, Son claimed to be hungry. "Can I have some more supper?" ... "No, come and brush your teeth now." ... I busied myself helping daughter get dressed for like the tenth time today and I was aware of Son going to the kitchen and helping himself to more supper. When he returned to me, I challenged him on his disobedience. "You just finished telling me you wanted to be a Christian and get baptized, but you're not ready to be baptized because you are disobedient. A real Christian wants to please God and his parents..." He was apologetic.

Then, later, when the other two had fallen asleep, I climbed into Son's top bunk with him and we had a real spiritual heart-to-heart discussion. I told him I understood what it was like for a kid with Christian parents, not being sure if your parents beliefs were true, since other people didn't believe those same things. He nodded, relating to this. I told him he needed to pray, not just when we prayed together, but on his own, so that God could answer his prayers and he could learn to trust. He wondered what to pray about. I told him the first thing for him would be that he could be saved from his sins and have a new nature, so that he would desire to please God. He wondered what would happen if he prayed about feeling lonely. I told him that if he knew the Lord, he would never be alone. "When people say they know the Lord, it is because they pray to God and He answers their prayers and then they pray again, and they read His word too... this is how we get to know the Lord and He is like a friend to us."

I was going to leave him, but he called me back. "What else do you know?" ... "About what?" ... "About God..." I paused and thought about how to answer this. "I know Daddy loves the Lord so much that he goes street preaching to tell other people about how wonderful the Lord is." ... He nodded enthusiastically, "Then they believe too, don't they?" I said "No, many people hear the words and don't believe. They make fun of the street preachers and laugh at them, because their hearts are so hard." We talked about sheep and goats in the Bible and how the sheep hear the Word and know it to be true, but the goats do not. Son got serious and asked why we would share with the people who have hard hearts. I told him because we don't know who are the sheep and the goats. Even some of the people who laugh could end up believing.

It was a wonderful discussion. I am so happy to have had that chance to share with my son. I pray we will always be intimate like that and he will never be afraid to open up with me and his father.