It started out as a bit of a joke, but the more I think about it, I'm realizing how tremendously far God has brought Jason and me over the past few years.
You see, last week Charlie's Bible verse was Psalm 40:8, "I delight to do your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart," but we couldn't get him to repeat it, because he refused to say "O my God."
We tried to explain to him that you can and should say "God" and "my God" when you are talking to Him or about Him in a loving way...but Charlie is three after all, and what's more, he has a bit of his mother's tendency to look at things as either black or white...no shades of gray. Finally, I just altered the verse to be "I delight to do your will, my Lord; Your Law is within my heart," but I have to admit it felt a bit wrong (that black and white thing again).
Anyway, seeing the whole thing as a joke, I posted an update on Facebook and when I was reading a friend's response, I was brought to tears to realize where Charlie is in his understanding of God and where he could have been had God not been working so hard in Jason's and my lives.
Jason and I have both been believers for as long as we can remember, but after our wedding and a bit of a disappointment with the new pastor at my church, we had a hard time finding a church that met our needs. And unfortunately, we let our difficulty in finding the "perfect church" more or less keep us away other than special occassions until we moved to SC.
Then a combination of my preference for nondenominational or independent churches, our discomfort with the more "enthusiastic" atmosphere of Southern churches (Jason and I are firmly organ/hymn people at heart), the lack of street signs in SC and our enjoyment of lazy Sunday mornings resulted in almost two years of trying churches here and there, but never committing.
While I am sure that there are some couples who could go a few years without a solid church home, but still read their Bible's regularly, grow in their faith and develop a strong foundation of Christ-centered friends, Jason and I are not among them. To be clear, we never abandoned our faith, but we certainly were not growing and it was evident in our attitudes, priorities and the overall level of joy in our lives.
God changed everything, though. One Sunday morning as Jason snoozed away, Otis and I went for our regular Starbucks run and saw a sign for Grace Christian Fellowship. The word "Grace" caught my eye, but the word "Fellowship" concerned me (organs and hymns, remember?). Nevertheless, there was a website, so iced latte in hand, I checked out the site and told Jason, "Well, I can't find anything Biblically inaccurate about it...maybe we should check it out."
Amazingly, despite the fact that Jason was sick with a stomach bug, I went the next Sunday morning and when I returned home he was shocked to hear me say, "I couldn't find anything wrong with it." So the following week we went together and were relieved and delighted when Jimmy, one of the elders, seemed to understand our hesitancy to fill out a visitor card -- we were still checking them out. In fact, almost four years later, we are very involved members of GCF, but we still haven't filled out a "Green Card."
The most perfect part is that two weeks after we first attended together, I found out that I was 6 weeks pregnant with Charlie. Now, I just have to look around to see that church in and of itself does not bring anyone closer to God, but it is undeniable that God had a plan when he led us to a family of believers and a desire to prioritize Him, His Word and His Will for us.
Without that change of heart and mind, Jason and I would still be Christians, but would Charlie really know it? Would we pray together as a family? Would his favorite stories be Jonah and Noah? Would he love to talk about the fact that God is everywhere? Would He know that God loves him even more than Mommy and Daddy do? Would He know that Jesus died on the cross and is alive today?
I know that we would still scold him for repeating the "O my God" that he hears in the world, but would he know or care why?
God blessed me with an incredibly obedient and loving and laughing Charlie on Mother's Day, and while he napped in the car I was overwhelmed with gratitude to realize that had God not cared enough to work on Jason and me, Charlie would be living a completely different life.
Sure, we would have probably found a church when we decided that it was the "right thing to do." Hopefully Charlie would one day have come to truly understand who God is and why we need to be reconciled to Him through his Son, but he deserves to know that now -- at three years old. He deserves to grow up knowing that God is already loving him and listening to him and watching him -- and loved three year old Charlie enough to send His own Son to die so that toddler, child, teenager and adult Charlie can know Him.
Without growing parents Charlie didn't have a hope of growing in Christ until he was old enough to find Him on his own. I am so grateful that God took Jason and me by the hand and brought us back to His path so that our Charlie didn't have to miss out.
