tender shoots

Some days are just all small and simple, just like the ones that came before and the ones that will come after, but suddenly something beautiful and really big happens. It doesn’t even always feel big. Sometimes, I’m sure, I miss the moments completely. But days of sowing and praying and faith will yield fruit, and just a glimpse of a tender green shoot completely excites me.

This boy. Lanky and long. Learning. This is him, slipping out of his bed to proudly show me his latest journal entry. The journal he begged me for, which he now keeps near his bed. A little record of the Bible passage he’s read, his little thoughts on it, the prayers that are in his heart. A treasure trove. “Psalm 100. Praise, like, wow, it’s like a super power.”

This boy. He lays in bed and asks Jameson about heaven, about knowing that you’re going there. Ryan hears and brings him out to the quiet family room, where the three of us chat about Jesus, about the gospel, about knowing that you’re His. He prays, and then his eyes shine. He beams. The next morning, he beams. I ask in devotions if anyone has a testimony, and he jumps at the chance to say it: Last night, I got saved!

We rejoice. Jameson bounces in his seat, his eyes beaming now, too. “Can we all tell about when we got saved? Can we??”

He runs to the kitchen. We wait. And wait. Finally he appears.

“It was at the dinner table. Daddy talked to me. He drew me a picture, kinda like this, I think.”

He produces his version of this sketch.

“We all are trying to be good enough, to jump far enough, but we can’t and we fall down to the devil. But Jesus is over here, and then He comes to us. And He brings us over when we believe in Him.”

Yes! We all beam.

Can we sing that song for Easter?, they ask. So we end our happiest of devotions:

Jesus is alive!
The angels say.
Be glad, be glad
It’s Easter Day.

*****

“But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

My heart is filling.

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