A Declaration

A special event took place this past Valentines Day. It was an unplanned, extra blessing that it happened to fall on Valentines Day, but it was probably little Eddie's most special Valentines Day yet. Our church has a neat way of declaring new lives brought to Christ by always keeping a vase up on stage and anytime a person asks Jesus into their heart a rose is put into the vase and their name is announced at church Sunday morning. Red roses are for adults, yellow for teenagers, and white for children. There are usually several roses in the vase at once. In fact, I remember once after some of our church members returned from a mission trip, the vase was full of red roses representing all the people we ministered to and led to Christ in that foreign country.

Well, I am sure you can see where I am going with this. We have talked with Eddie about the Lord since he was a baby. We pray together, sing to Jesus together, and read the Bible together. Eddie is a smart cookie, and he caught on quickly to the concepts of the Bible. One night, when Eddie was almost 5 years old, Ed was tucking him into bed, and Eddie announced that he wanted to ask Jesus into his heart. Ed explained what it meant and Eddie was whole-heartedly ready and excited. So, they prayed together! We were blessed and elated that our sweet boy had made up his little mind to receive God's gift of forgiveness and love.

For some reason, the rose declaration for Eddie didn't occur to me until recently, when a friend had a rose on stage for her son after he accepted the Lord. I talked with Eddie about the idea, and he was so excited to be able to declare to the whole church that Jesus was in his heart! So, on February 14th, 2010, Eddie's white rose was the only one in the vase. Our pastor told the church that, "a 6-year-old kindergartner named Eddie had asked Jesus into his heart" and with a huge smile on his face, Eddie jumped up and shot both his fists up into the air like he had just won a big victory. It melted my heart, and I prayed right then and there that my little boy's love for Jesus would always be so important to him that he would never even think twice about declaring it to room full of people.