The Basics of Life

At the end of last week, I heard a radio DJ say, "Whew! We made it through another week."  After hearing that, I couldn't stop thinking about how I disagreed with that statement.  I'm not going to deny that I have often had that attitude myself, but over the last couple weeks, God has been changing that.  I recently had a dear friend that was diagnosed with brain cancer.  He has a 2 year old daughter and his wife has been like an older sister to me.  Our prayer is for a miraculous healing or cure, but it's really made me think about how short our time here on Earth is and how precious each day is.  Now, instead of thinking, "Whew, I made it through another week," I now think of how to take advantage of each day with my boys because my time to be as powerful an influence in their life as I have the opportunity to be now is short.  Soon, they will grow up and transfer their primary emulation to their Daddy.  For now, I'm just going to enjoy every moment of loving and teaching them.

As a grateful and proud Mommy, I must brag on Michael and Nathan.  Earlier today, I had a servant team meeting for the Women's Bible Study with our church, WUBC/Crosspoint.  We're studying Beth Moore's "Jesus, the One and Only."  Because this is our only meeting prior to the start of the studies, it's a really important meeting and I really had to focus.  Michael and Nathan were the only kids there, but they were both so incredibly well-behaved.  Neither had any problems.  No crying, no whining.  Whenever I would ask Michael to do something, he would obey quickly.  They didn't disrupt the meeting and weren't too distracting.  I was so proud of them!

But more importantly than their good behavior, was one of the coolest things that Michael said today.  Michael likes to watch the movie, "Kung Fu Panda."  Originally, it was not one of the movies I thought was appropriate for him because it's not rated "G," but Eric has been letting him watch it and now he loves it.  Well, during one of the scenes, the old wise turtle dies.  Michael would always ask, "what happened to turtle?"  I would always tell him that the turtle went to Heaven.  Since he's only 2 1/2, I just wanted to start with introducing the concept of going to Heaven after life here without confusing it too much with whether or not the turtle really goes to Heaven (that will be for another day when he's older).  Then, today, Michael said, "I want to go to Heaven."  So I said, "I want you to go to Heaven!  The way to get to Heaven is through Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the way to Heaven.  He loves you and died for you so you can go to Heaven.  He saved you!"  I was just so excited that I've been able to at least introduce some basic aspects of our faith to him.  Of course, he's not old enough to understand sin and death and the need for salvation, but I found it to be such an encouraging start!