A New Heart

Again?  Who was coming down the stairs?  Why does bedtime challenge every cell in my body to fight self-control?

He crept around the corner.  I sighed.  He asked.  And so a life was changed.

“What if I wanted to ask God into my heart?  Would you say yes or no?”

He sat with my sweetie and me while Princess listened and prayed silently in the corner chair. 

Our conversations during the seven months that our 9yo foster son has lived in our home had been real and plentiful.  God is not something we do on Sundays.  He is life.  He changes things.  He cares about what we do and say every millisecond.  Life for our son has forced him to question who God is.   To this point, sin was everyone else’s problem. So much around him now was building a new reality.  Tonight he faced a crisis of faith.   

God brought our son to a point where he realized that he could not possibly make the right choices without God.  He came to know that his sin is real and big, but God is bigger.  In his own voice he prayed to ask God to forgive him of his sins and be in his life.  Wow. 

I am a blessed momma to have witnessed firsthand the life changing moment of salvation for the oldest five of my eight kids.  With our son, we proceeded with caution so as not to force a decision, or have him make a decision for the moment in order to please our family.  As he left to head back to bed, he turned to go up the stairs and we heard a sweet, quite “Yessss”.  How cool is that?

I am convinced that the Holy Spirit’s indwelling is immediate and immediately effective.  If you know my little guy, you know he can be quite tough on many levels.   Mornings are exceptionally difficult.  Today, I think God chose to wow us.  This was not the same kid that I had dealt with yesterday.  God’s Word says, “The old has gone, the new has come.” 

Salvation does not make us perfect angels.  Any time in our home would prove that within seconds.  Our son will have bad days.  He is dealing with yucky stuff in his life.  Today, though, he is a brand new child of God.  He told his teacher that today.  He shared it with his birth mom also. 

My sweet husband reminded me last night, “This is why we do what we do.”  I often challenge moms that their first job is evangelizing their kids, and the second job is discipling them.  I am so excited and blessed to have been able to have a part in changing a life for eternity no matter what his future may be here on earth.