Today, one of those moments we parents pray for happened. According to standard procedure, Mom and Dad set about our day with Bible reading, prayer, and a steaming mug alongside...and someone had been watching, taking it all in day after day.
Today, Noble asked for his first Bible. Fortunately, I make it a habit to pick up children's Bibles anytime I find one in new condition at the library book store or children's shop near our house, so I was excitedly prepared. I ran upstairs, found just the right one for Noble and inscribed his name in permanent ink.
Today, we witnessed first hand the power of modeled behavior. Our boy, so trusting and sweet, asked for a steaming mug too...his was warm milk. He sat by his father, read his Bible just like Dad, and learned without a word the importance of the Word.
Today, I (re)learned something too. I was reminded of the influence my relationship with Jesus has on my family, and not just my children, but upon my husband too.
"Wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct."
1 Peter 3:1-2
Today, my heart rejoiced over a son whose impressionable little soul saw something of value in his Bible. He knows that it is good and he's hungry for it. Praise the Lord! Welling up inside, I observed something extraordinary taking place in the ordinary right here in my kitchen. (How cherished to capture the moment!)
Today, and every day, we the parents have the opportunity to mold the clay of our children's young hearts, to press fingerprints of God's goodness, to stamp permanent markings on tablets of human hearts. We have the opportunity. Will we make the most of it?
"And you show that you are a letter from Christ
delivered by us, written not with
ink
but with the Spirit of the living God,
not on tablets of stone
but on
tablets of human hearts."
2 Corinthians 3:3
Today, our Noble...our kind, gentle, precious gift of a son...began the journey of a lifetime into the infinite pasture of reading God's Word. My heart's prayer is that he would hear the Good Shepherd's voice, that he would come to know his Savior, that God's grace would fall upon Noble and open the eyes of his heart.
So I pray, "Lord, please hear this mother's cry. Please beckon my son to your call that he might seek and find when he seeks you with his whole heart, that he might come to know the JOY that flows from knowing you! God, you can do that."
Nothing matters more.
"The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep."
John 10:3, 4, 14, 15
