Of course God had been pursuing her for a while (as
evidenced by lots of good questions, especially lately), but the specifics of
this start at the beginning of May when I got my DVD for practicing VBS
music/motions. The first time we listened to the slow, reflective,
gospel-sharing song “Worthy”, both Bekah and I got all teary-eyed and choked up
and she asked some questions- “Mommy, why are you sad?” To which I answered,
“these are happy tears; it’s sad that we are such broken sinners and that Jesus
had to die for us, but I’m happy & incredibly grateful that He did!” And
she said something like, “I’m glad he did too.” That song is based on Romans 5:8-
“But God demonstrates his own
love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.
The song lyrics: "There's never
been a love so amazing, there's never been a heart so forgiving, There's never
been a truth so life-changing, There's never been a name so worth praising.
Worthy is the lamb who was slain, who died and rose again. Worthy to receive
all power, Worthy to receive all praise. Jesus is Worthy. Jesus is Worthy. But
God proved His own love for us, In that while we were still sinners, Christ
died so that we could live, Now we can celebrate Jesus is alive!”
Fast forward one month (and many God moments/conversations)
later, and we’re halfway through that same song again, and she starts crying. I
pause the DVD and sit down next to her on the couch, and Andy comes over too. I
ask her what’s wrong and she said that it was happy and sad that Jesus had to
die; that she loved Jesus and wanted to be a believer! To which I remember
saying, “You can! You can! All it takes is a personal decision to accept Jesus
as your Lord and Savior. That’s what that last song was about.” (The prior song
was about the ABCs; A- Admitting to God that you are a sinner/repenting, B-
Believing that Jesus is God’s Son and that he died to save you, C- Confessing
your faith in Jesus as your Savior and Lord and living your life for Him for
ever more). So I went through all of those pieces with her (and had in the past
too- many different times in different chunks), but this time she truly seemed
to get it. I saw full recognition in her face. And I told her that to become a
believer, she needed to pray a prayer in her own words saying those things, and
if she truly meant them, she’d be saved! Then I said, whenever you’re ready to
pray a prayer like that, just tell us. Then she asked me to turn the song back
on J
Twenty minutes later, after we had finished our bedtime
routine with the girls and read the Bible, she asked to pray. Completely in her
own words, she did pray the sinner’s prayer, but she said the whole thing using
the term “we” (“we admit that we are sinners”, etc). So I told her again that
it was a personal decision that only she could make and that she should use the
word “I” throughout the whole prayer. To which she said, “I want to pray with
you in the morning, mommy”. I prayed that night that if this was ‘it’ (decision
time) that she really would remember in the morning, and decided that I was not
going to say anything about it unless she brought it up, because I’ve never
wanted to pressure her.
Sure enough, she got up at 7:30am the next morning, Wednesday,
June 6th, went to the bathroom, and then the first thing she said
was, “mommy, I want to pray that prayer”. I had just finished changing Norah’s
diaper since she had just woken up too, so we were in Norah’s room when Bekah
said this. Bekah then prayed the sinner’s prayer all on her own and accepted
Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior, and it was the sweetest thing I had ever
heard!!!!!! Overwhelming doesn’t begin to describe it. I partially wish I had
stopped her and made her wait so I could have recorded it- but you can’t make a
moment like this wait! Because she is so young and I don’t want her to have a
fuzzy memory of this all-encompassing decision, I did have her repeat her
prayer for me afterwards so that I could video-record it with my iPhone, and
the amazing thing is that she already sounded wiser the second time (used
bigger words and added things about ‘wisdom’ and ‘wanting a beautiful heart
like Jesus’). She requested waffles for breakfast so I made them and cut hers
into the shape of a cross to commemorate the day and got a picture of her
exuberant smile!!
Then during breakfast she was talking about her big sister
Asia and her beautiful smile, hair, eyes, etc- and then suddenly started
talking about how Asia’s appearance on the outside doesn’t matter as much to
God as her beauty on the inside; her heart. Then she started telling me that I
am more beautiful on the inside than on the outside; that God created us all
and that he cares about our hearts. It’s not as though we haven’t taught her
those things (we had her memorize 1 Samuel 16:7 at about 3yrs old) but I
haven’t heard her repeat those things back until now. Wow!!!!!! It was
confirmation to me that her decision was genuine- that the Holy Spirit was already
beginning His work in her and clarifying things for her.
We went and saw Ms. Barbara Brennan today, Thursday, June 7th,
and Bekah was able to articulate to her what she believes, answer questions
about who Jesus is, what He did for us, what sin is, that His death wasn’t the
end of the story, how someone can be saved, and how she prayed to receive
Christ. Ms. Barbara gave her a children’s devotion book and asked her what we
do to proclaim to the whole church that we have made a decision to give our
lives to Jesus (baptism- which Bekah knows from watching her friend Caroline
Lane get baptized about a year ago)!
Here I thought that I was called to do VBS music this year
so that I could help express God’s love to LOTS of kids (over 1,000) and lead
them in corporately worshipping our Lord through music…which is still true….but
a major purpose of God placing me in THIS role THIS year was to have me
practicing these songs/truths with my OWN daughter, whom He had planned to save
NOW. I am humbled and awed.
Oh, and the final piece of this story? You know the AMAZING
verse that the VBS song was based on, that the Holy Spirit used to put all of
the puzzle pieces together in Bekah’s mind, that spurred Bekah on to give her
life to Christ? Romans 5:8 (that I mentioned above)? That was THE. SAME. VERSE.
that brought me to a saving knowledge of Christ during a Bible study in
college. WOW. SPEECHLESS. PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!
