My thoughts lately....

Today I am writing about a family, that I do not know very well, but a young couple having their first child. A couple that just recently moved to the Memphis area and just recently joined our church. A couple that was to welcome their first born any day now into this crazy, sinful, cruel world.... having FAITH that Jesus Christ himself would watch over this child her entire life.

Her name is baby Leah... She was born, but was not living. Something terrible and unimaginable happened in the womb, that honestly only God knows what happened. This story has captivated my mind and thoughts lately... I often asked "why", "why Lord would you take this child from them, why would you not allow them to know her well?" Oh but what I do know, is she got a free ride to the BEST place, Heaven! Our Lord is holding her in his arms right now, loving on her and show her all around that mighty kingdom. Oh what day it will be, what a day it will be for us all to be together, in a unimaginable place. I can't wait, honestly I can not wait to see such a beautiful site. Please pray for the Sawyer family, it is a horrific situation, I can not imagine the pain they are going through, but only God can comfort them and their faith is being shown, they are amazing people!!!

Recently the boys have questioned Heaven, just last week while in the car, Luke said, randomly "Mommy, I'm going to go give Jesus a hug, all the way up in Heaven" I said " Oh yes, I can't wait til the day comes, that we all get to meet Him, Oh what a lovely day it will be!" Will on the other hand, he's older, he had to think about it for a minute... I could see the concerned look on his face, he said "but Mom, you always say if we obey God and are good people, we will go to Heaven, what happens to all of the people who are bad" Well Will, it's simple " they go to a really bad place called hell, it's where the devil lives, it's full of fires, mean people and just hell in itself, you never ever want to do anything to go to hell" They have heard me talk about the devil from time to time, if something bad happens, it could be little or big, I simply say "this is the devil attacking us" So, I honestly had to think about all that I was telling them, I'm a pretty straight forward kind of girl, I will tell you how it is, black and white.. there is NO gray, especially when you are talking about this. It also gave me another wonderful opportunity to explain to the boys, the reason we love and worship Jesus, what Jesus did for us and how if we are just good, we obey Him and we share the gospel to others who do not know Him, we will all be together in Heaven one day!

I think after this, they understood, I of course could not stop thinking about that conversation in the car and about how bad things do happen to good people. I kept wondering if I had explained it ok, the conversation quickly ended to something else, probably something silly (because silly is their middle names right now... being silly is all they know to do) These are moments, that being a parent TERRIFIES me... I have always told people, I can handle 10,000 babies all day long, but when they start getting bigger, knowing about how to be good and bad and it is all of our responsibility to teach them, it scares me to death. Gosh, what if I mess up, what if I told tell them correctly, or I don't pound this in their head enough so when they are older, they are just beyond bad, that thought right there makes my hands sweat just thinking about it, it TERRIFIES me!!! Being a parent is tough, but these moments also teach me a lot about myself and my confidence in being a good parent, no not just a good parent, but a GREAT parent...

So, lately this is what my mind has been wrapped around... any comments, all would be welcome :)