Hearing From The Lord...

Today my oldest son heard a message from God.

Yes, that's right. My God spoke to my son. Since he turned six he has been going to "big kid church". They often come downstairs and attend the worship music part of the service.Their teacher, a woman I truly love who has a passionate love for children, asked them, upon returning to their classroom, if anyone heard anything from God during the service.

My sweet John raised his hand and shared that he heard from God that his brother James was going to be just fine. That John didn't need to worry about him, God was going to heal him.

Wow! I love that. I love that John was worried about James. I love that he has a heart to hear from God, I love that he is ready to ask God for whatever is on his heart, all the time. I love that the God of the universe heard my son's concerns for his brother deep in his heart (he did not tell us he was worried), and spoke to him clearly about His intentions to heal him.

Not only is that a precious display of faith and answered prayer, but of a heavenly Father's love for one of His kids. Yes. I need a reminder, more often than once a day, that John belongs to God, not me.

Now, James did not have anything hideously wrong that I was aware of. He had a stomach ache for a few days that I was praying about (asking the Lord if it was something serious or just a tummy bug) that ended in him coming out of his room last night after about an hour of sleep crying telling Daddy that there was something yucky in his bed. He had barfed in his sleep. Erik got up to change the sheets and clean up the mess, passing a crying and coated in yuck James to me to wash up in the tub. He settled down as the warm water washed over him and once all was cleaned and ready, went back to bed without further incident. John did wake up once to see if everything was okay then went back to sleep.

James could not go to church today because I didn't want to send him off to Sunday School before the standard 24 hour waiting period was up (parenting 101 as I explained to Erik :)). So, John was apparently concerned that James, though he said he was better and he ate a good breakfast, was unable to go to church. He took his concerns to the Lord and like I said above, God spoke to him about them.

I love that. I need to remember to take ALL my concerns to God. Not just the ones that I think merit "real" concern. He cares about ALL of it. Big and small. And I heard from Him today, through my son, that I need not worry about my James. God had taken care of him. He was healed.

I don't think most mom's are terribly stressed out about their kid getting the flu. But what was happening was, I had been pretty stressed all week. I was processing some pain in our extended family, battling old mindsets about past eating behaviors, walking through some hard stuff with some friends and let's face it, all the physical training I am doing is very tiring. So I was on edge, yelling, grumpy, and not terribly pleasant several times throughout the week. The enemy of my soul was telling me that James' stomach aches were my fault. That I was stressing him out and my four year old son was developing an ulcer because of my tense week. Lovely huh?

And, with one ear, not really on purpose, I was listening. Because I felt guilty. Yes, I repented, to my kids and to God for unfortunate choices and unacceptable displays of temper. But Mommy-guilt is a whole other kind of guilt. It is like sticking your toe into a stream and ending up overtaken by the water! God always reminds me to focus on the truth in these moments - Erik says the same thing... but somehow, I easily turn one ear back to the liar.

So, I continue in transformation... listening to God, and when I am listening too much to the liar, maybe John will hear something to remind me of the truth! Thank you Lord!!