A Night Worth Remembering!

A Night Worth Remembering!


It's been a super long time since I have blogged, but THIS was a good reason to start up again!!!

Last Tuesday night (Aug. 30^th) was a night I hope to always have the ability to remember as I watched the Lord work miraculously.  My husband called me at 5:30 to see if I could quickly get the girls ready to go see the movie ‘The Insanity of God’ at 7:00.  I kicked into high gear to get them all ready, fed and Leah dropped off at my in-laws in order to make it on time to the movie.  We ended up jumping through all types of hurdles to make it to the movie, and by the time we got there, I just wanted to turn around and go home.  Nevertheless we proceeded and got seated. 

If you haven’t heard of or seen this movie, I don’t in anyway want to spoil it for you, so you may want to turn back now instead of reading any further.  This movie is a documentary of the life of a missionary couple Nik and Ruth Ripkien and the Persecuted Church.  Much of the movie was the Nik and Ruth explaining their lives on the mission field, but it was also reenactments of the stories of some of their life and the lives of some of the persecuted believers they interviewed.  At one point during the movie, they give the details of how they lost their oldest son while serving the people of Kenya.  During this part of the movie, Ruth begins describing her feelings of viewing through a smaller lens a glimpse of what God the Father may have experienced, as God the Son was crucified on the cross.  As she is sharing her feelings of this sad day in their lives she also clearly laid out the gospel…Hannah, who was sitting in my lap reaches over and begins rubbing Madie’s back.  As we look, Madie had her head in her face buried in her lap sobbing.  It caught us a bit off guard, Stephen and I looked at her and I asked her what was wrong (I seriously thought she was hurt or sick).  In between sobs, she whispered, “I’m just so sorry for my sin…” 

We were both floored and didn’t really know how to speak to her about what she said since we were in the middle of the movie theatre so we just squeezed her hands and continued watching the movie.  When we got home (somewhere after 10:30) she was sitting in her room waiting for Stephen and I to come tuck her in after putting the other two to bed.  She began to ask all sorts of questions about why people were being killed in the movie just because they loved Jesus.  She told us she wanted to trust Jesus but she was afraid, she didn’t want people to kill her for doing so.  She asked us if she could pretend not to love Jesus and “trick” those people if they ever came to her house but really still love him.  We shared the scripture from Matt 10:33 that says, “if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father in Heaven.”  We shared the scripture with her Matt 10:28 that tells us not to fear those who can kill the body but not the soul, but to fear Him who is able to destroy both.  It was very obvious that she was well aware of the choice she might face one day if she chose to follow Christ. 

We both shared a bit of the beauty of following The One who gave His perfect sinless life on our behalf so that we could be made right with The Holy God.  We could tell she was super tired, so we prayed with her and kissed her good night.  We could see what felt like a visible work of the Holy Sprit going on and our little girl was counting the cost of what trusting Christ might mean for her one day.  We went to bed praying for her. 

About 2:30 a.m. I woke up to Madie whispering my name. 

“Mom…mom…mom…”   “What is it?” I asked her.  “Mom, I trust Jesus with my life AND my body…”

The rest of the conversation is a blur because she woke me out of a dead sleep.  I woke up the next morning wondering if that had really happened.  So when she came into the kitchen I asked her, “what did you say to me last night when you came in and woke me?”  “I told you, I wasn’t afraid to trust Jesus with my life and my body and when I woke up this morning I said, GOOD MORNING GOD!” 

I can’t begin to explain to you where our hearts and emotions went from there as we rejoiced at what the Lord was doing in our eight year old’s heart.  It was an obvious work of the Lord that no man could do.  We watched the fruit of this work blossom as the next few days unfolded.  We have continued watching how sensitive her heart has been as we have disciplined or corrected her.

Madie has been asking questions over the last year of her life about what it means to follow Christ.  We have watched over the last several months and weeks how she has truly seen the ugliness of sin and the beauty of forgivness.  We have witnessed her count the cost and continued to step forward in wiliness to follow Jesus. 

I sit here with a grateful heart and tears as I type this.  There are no words I can type right now to convey this monumental step in her life and all it will entail for her in this crazy world of uncertainty.  I can even find myself fearing what’s to come if I don’t keep my heart in check!  Her Creator loves her more than we ever could and His plans for her life are good and perfect.  He is trustworthy and her life was created to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever…

…and that my friends, she is going to do!  Praise be to His Great and Mighty Name!