Hello friends, how is your day going?

I had an odd thing happen to me this morning.  I was in the bathroom, helping Sarah go potty (yeah, we are potty training. again.) and she started talking to me in her high-pitched, sympathetic tone of voice.  “Oh!  Do you have a boo-boo, Mom?”  She was gazing sadly at my arm as I pulled up her little jeans.  “Can I kiss it?  Let me see it!”  I gave her my arm, wondering where this “boo boo” was, and she took it in her soft hands and turned it and ……. kissed my dry, wrinkled elbow!

I’m hideous!

I’ve been chuckling over it all morning.

I found a cool thing at that antique store I told you about on Monday.  Yes, I mainly came away with books, but I also found something that I decided to hang up in Seth’s room.  It’s a “Wild Animals of Britain” wall hanging.  He was thrilled to see it.  I had to iron it first and then find tacks.  We found three tacks and then I started looking in the junk drawers in the kitchen for a fourth.  I got so annoyed by those dang drawers filled with stuff that I took them all out and dumped The contents in one big pile on the floor.  All morning, whenever I had a free moment, I sat down to sort and throw away the little odd bits of junk that my family has accumulated.  And now, happily, I’m all done with that chore, the drawers are all EMPTY and the floor is CLEAN and swept.  Feels good.  Like the house lost weight. 

Here’s Seth’s new wall hanging (printed on “irish linen”–go figure–)

Isn’t it so very quaint?  I love the green background color, too.  He pointed to the animals and named them.  I told him the ones he wasn’t sure of “weasel, badger, hedgehog” and corrected his speech; “box” is actually a “FOX”.

Seth is growing and learning and changing.  My heart is so very pleased with his latest interest in Bible stories.  We take him to Sunday School and church each Sunday, and he also has a class to go to while I am in Bible Study on Wednesdays.  He has learned many stories from the Bible and I think they are wonderful for him because they are so adventurous.  This week he learned about Daniel and the Lion’s Den and how God shut the lions’ mouths so that they couldn’t bite him.

On Sunday, he thought about Jesus dying on the cross, a lot.  I don’t know whether to smile or sigh about all the times BLOOD is mentioned at church.  I smile because it is the marvellous gospel message that I know and believe, but I sigh because I wonder what the little ones are thinking as I shield them all week from any sort of violence and then we go to church and talk about Jesus dying on the cross in a bloody way, with nails in His hands.  I do know and believe that God’s grace covers the whole situation and that also, most of it goes right over their heads.  But, this Sunday, Little Seth tugged on my skirt at church, I bent down in the middle of singing “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” and listened to him ask, “Will you tell me that story again?  About Jesus and the blood?”  So I sit and tell him the story again.  And when we get home, he wants to hear it again.  I wonder if “it’s okay” to tell him these things, to satisfy his curiousity about blood and dying.

Then, I realize, that it’s for him and for me, and my eyes fill with tears, because of the sweetness.  Because of the questions he asks and the longing we all have to hear the old, old, story again and again.  In my telling it, in the most simple way I can, my own soul is strengthed.  I remember again that God sent Jesus to earth to save poor sinful men and women who are tired and longing and hoping and needful…..of His salvation and grace….and nothing but His blood can wash away the tiresome sins of the world.  And I pray that my words burn into his memory, “Sethie, Mommy loves Jesus and believes in Him and someday I will be in heaven with Him, too.”

“And, Seth, remember, Jesus died on the cross, but He is not dead any more.  He rose from the dead!  He is alive right now and,” (because he asks I tell him) “his boo-boos are all better!”

He is finding our Bible story books around the house and took some to bed with him during his nap.

This one was another satisfying adventure story about how God helped a shepherd boy and the boy killed a big bad giant with a sling, and a stone.  The stone goes right into his forehead.

And the giant goes tumbling down.

“He’s killed, he’s killed!”  ~Seth (a boy through and through)

Someday I hope to tell him that the journey of his spiritual awareness all began when he was only three and had so many questions.

Will you pray for Seth today?  And me, too?

Thank you, friends.