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| Is this one happy little girl or what! |
What a beautiful night it has been! So here how it went it down as best as David and I can remember.
8pm- I'm snuggling with AA in my bed right before I tuck her into her bed and just finished praying together for her foster family, birth parents and Ms. Kitty. She then looks up at me with those chocolate brown eyes and and begins to stutter (like she does when her little brain is moving faster than her lips!) and asks, "Mooooommyyyy, yayayaya ya know that chriiiiiissstiian thing we've beeeeeen taaallllk taaaaaallk taaaaalking about? How do yooooouuu do that?" I say, "Oh, that's such a great question...let's go get daddy and we can all talk about that together."
AA asks again.
David- "Well, there are some things that you have to know and believe. Who is Jesus?"
AA-"God"
David- "Where did He live?"
AA- "heaven"
David-"Okay, where else did he live"
AA- can't remember exactly what she said
David- "How did he die? or what happened to Jesus?"
AA- "He was in a tomb."
David- "Yes, He was in a tomb. Was he dead or alive in the tomb?"
AA- "dead"
David-"Who put him in the tomb?
AA- "soldiers"
David- "Did he stay in the tomb?"
AA- "No, he came out."
David- "Why did they put him in the tomb?"
AA- "They hurt him."
David- "Yes, they hurt him. How did they hurt him?"
AA- They put nails in him.
David-"Can God die?"
AA- "no"
David- "Can man die?'
AA- "yes"
David- "Jesus the man died." Earlier you asked how to become a christian. If you pray and tell God you know and believe these things and ask God to be a christian and Jesus to come into your heart, He will!" Is that something you are interested in doing??
AA- Yes! She then hesitated and fumbled around with her answer then said, "No, I think I want to wait. Maybe just for a little bitty bitty bit (as she is showing us with her two fingers what a "little itty bitty bit" is!)
Me- "Well, how long do you think that will be?" (sweating bullets as I'm glaring at David cause neither of us want to coerce her into anything FOR SURE!)
David- "Do you mean like a year? a day? a month?"
AA- Yeah, I think I'll wait a year. (yes, she probably has no concept of time!)
David- "Do you think God would want you to wait a year?"
AA- OH, no! Let's do this now! (SOOOOOO precious...soooo innocent!)
Me- "What do you think you'd say to God in a prayer?"
AA- was at a lost for words so David stepped in
David- "Do you want daddy to say a prayer and you repeat after me? We could do that."
AA- Yes!
David- "Okay, let's pray. Dear God, Thank you for your son Jesus. Dear God, thank you that Jesus dies on the cross for me. Thank you that He came alive again. I know I do things that I shouldn't do. Please forgive me so I know I'm okay with you. Pleas come into my heart so that I can become a christian and live with you forever. I love you. Amen." (and she repeated word for word)
AA- "Now I'm a christian?!" Can I tell people?!"
Me- "Oh, yes! That's exactly what God wants us to do is to tell others about Jesus!"
AA- Can I tell my teachers tomorrow? and Reagan? (her sweet friend at school)
David and me- "Oh yes, they love Jesus and love you and will be so excited!"
We all talked for about 30 minutes. It was a very factual type of conversation. She was answering deliberately. Somewhere in all this conversation she brought up the miracle of Jesus walking on water and she said, "You know he was the only one who ever walked on water!" Then she said, "There was a really old guy who had a baby." I said, "Are you talking about Abraham and Sarah?" and she said, "Yes!" All that to say that she has been soaking in everything that we and many others have been pouring into her in the last 16 months. WOW!
She wanted to call my best friend, Kristina, and her buddies Owen and McKenzie Grace who we've just been with last weekend. I must say it was a PRECIOUS conversation! She talked with "Uncle Troy" who first answered, and he was sooooo excited for her and shared her joy (THANK YOU!). Then she called Kristina who was with Owen at the doctor and had to leave a message. Owen called back within minutes and said, "You're a christian now?!?! Yeah! We're going to heaven together now...yeah!" (I did mentioned Owen was my future son-in-law in a couple posts ago!!). He's looking out for her : )
Why am I ever surprised at God's amazing grace and perfect timing? Seriously...why? When you pray for your child's salvation and then it happens....just wow! Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that God would be so gracious in prompting Audrey An to have enough of an understanding of salvation to make her own decision of asking Jesus to come into her heart after being in our family only 16 months. Childlike faith...that's what it's all about. I know she doesn't know "everything", but she believes, and she couldn't have been as matter of fact and happy about it all! Acts 16:31 says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved." Yes, it's that easy! It's a process....all adoptions are! There's a starting point and God in his grace allows us to grow and mature. Man, I sure don't know it all either! Never never ever under estimate the power of your words. Abigail and I were were helping her memorize John 3:16 just this weekend along with illustrating to her them as we carved a pumpkin that all the "gunk" in the pumpkin was like sin in our own lives. God wants to scoop it all out and make us clean!
So interesting that just yesterday I was asked to give a devotional at a friend's baby shower who has just returned from China about a month ago and I chose to parallel our girl's physical adoption to Christ's spiritual adoption of us. I made the comment that prayerfully our girls would experience two adoptions in their lifetime...something that most of us would never experience. I had no idea I would be sharing the absolute JOY in experiencing my own daughter's 2nd adoption the very next day! I've asked God to hep us recall every detail because I want her to know exactly what was said in case she ever has doubts. I experienced that as an adult and it was such an unsettling feeling. I'm sure some more details will come to mind and I'll add that to this post.
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| beaming! |
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| Abigail sharing in her joy! |
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| telling her good buddy, Owen! |
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| She should get some gooooood sleep tonight....I know I will! udpate on 11/9/10: Audrey An woke saying, "I'm a christian!" and wanted to read in her bible (totally unprompted!). Also, as I reflected more about the night I think it's interesting to David and me that as we were discussing last night about Abigail's spiritual birthday, AA wanted to go get her bible- her CHINESE bible. It' probably one of my most favorite gifts we've received for her. Her great grandmother Weedie (the onewho has just passed away last month) and aunt and uncle gave her this the first time they met her. It's a children's bible written in both english and chinese. No, she can't read the chinese (nor the english!), but for her momma and daddy it's pretty significant. To us, it symbolizes her dark past and her bright future all wrapped in one! |
2 comments:
aa!!! we love you and are so happy for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I went to high school with David and saw your blog address on his facebook. Anyway, beautiful post and it reminded me of a book that one of my professors at Dallas Theological Seminary wrote when his daughter was adopted from China. It compares her 1st and 2nd adoption. I looked it up on Amazon and thought you might enjoy it if you have not seen it before.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0825435773?tag=dallasseminary-20
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