Sunday, May 23, 2010

Salvation Has Come !!


A day of Jubilee!! Praise from the roof tops!! My oldest daughter just accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior!!!! What a blessing today has been to me, to my life, to my family. I wanted to tell the story how today came to be so that I would never forget this moment , this day and how I felt.

I also want to make it clear that as a DAD, I have longed for this day, but honestly feel (felt) so unequipped to handle such a decision. What do I do? How do I know? What if I don't recognize the signs? What if I say the wrong things? What if I mess up such an important life altering event? But then....why not me? Why do I feel I need someone else (Pastor, etc) to be sure? I am the one who labors with her each and every day, training her in the admonition of the Lord, praying with her and for her... I mean, why not me? The Spirit came over me and said "now is the time, CJ is ready..she has been called to serve the One True God. I wanted to place this in here because I have to believe I am not the only Dad who has these questions but also feel like the reasons I had (have) such insecurities in this area is I have never seen this play out before and I have had NO experience with this in my childhood growing up..so it all seems so foreign to me yet so natural at the same time..My fear is in my humanity..in trying to put my words in where the Spirit wants His..To place my impressions on her where the Spirit wants His..and what I experienced was a Spirit led conversation without me much thinking about it when the actual time came..How good is our God.:)

So about a week ago, we (the girls and I) had this special moment one evening just before bed time as we read from Lilygrace's new purple Bible. This night was no ordinary night. As I talked about knowing God and being accepted into His Kingdom and How Big God was and powerful He is...that by His very voice, He can speak things into existence..No shovels, no armies, no tools..just His voice.. The more I talked, the more I could see CJ and Jaydin's face change..a true genuine concern came over them! They began to cry rather loudly and became very concerned about not going to Heaven..unlike anything I had ever experienced with them before..so I prayed fervently that night for the Lord to MOVE in their life, for the Lord to make it clear to them. I have to be honest, this was not the first time I prayed this for them, but this was the first time I prayed it with such a passion and earnest desire. CJ asked me " What if God doesn't call me?" and I explained to her that question would not even be asked if God was not working in your life preparing the way..So I wanted to intercede on her behalf and seek God out to give her the assurance she was desperately seeking. So each day after this night, I could see something was bothering CJ, but when I asked her what might be wrong, she would shake her head (as to signal nothing) and say "nothing"...but then a tear would slip out of her eye and roll down her cheek. I admit I was puzzled. I could not understand why CJ would not open up to me and tell me what was bothering her. I was careful not to press for fear of causing her to shut down further..but I truly began to worry she was hiding something so large she could barely contain it..She was not herself..Her eating patterns had changed, she all of sudden wanted to sleep with us (which is highly out of her character), her playtime seemed dull and drab and dis interesting..so it was clear, something was going on...AS the father of a young girl, all sorts of thoughts came to my mind..thoughts that frightened me and touched nerves I did not know existed..thinking someone has harmed my daughter and then finally Sunday, May 23, 2010 came! This morning in church, I noticed again more tears streaming down the cheeks of her precious face as we sang..and I had never seen her cry at church before so this again caused me concern and caused me to think..what is bothering her..maybe after church today I will try and talk to her again.. We went out to lunch at Ruby Tuesday's after church and all seemed very normal. We got home and her neighbor friends were playing outside in the sprinkler in bathing suits and that got them excited..CJ went outside and after about 10-15 minutes she came back in and sat beside me and we began to watch this movie on TV..Once again, I saw a tear slip out and roll down her face, so I asked her to to come sit on my lap and she immediately came to me.. I asked " Honey, can you please tell me what is bothering you?"...I was determined to not let "nothing" suffice..and so she finally began to open up..
She said " I have been having these visions and they are really scaring me"..I thought to myself "visions???" and I asked her to explain. She finally said "that something has happened to me and I don't know what you would do"...LIGHT BULB. It all began to make sense to me..I remembered in a conversation that night I spoke of earlier where I had told her that I did not know what I would do if something would happen to her and she had not accepted Christ and chose to delay that for fun in this world.. That was my subtle way of trying to express the urgency of the decision of living for Christ..that no tomorrow is guaranteed to us and so as soon you knew for sure, don't wait..She had been thinking non stop about this conversation and about being sure she was going to heaven..worried sick to the point of visions of not going to Heaven and not ever knowing Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. So we talked about 2 hours or so and I shared with her what I felt the Spirit wanted me to share..and then it dawned on me..This was it..!! Now is the time..She is ready and so I asked her "Do you want to pray and accept to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior and to receive full assurance of your place in Heaven..to be saved from your sinfulness...and she just lost it and broke down in a loud sobbing cry and the word YES came from her distraught little voice, intermingled with sniffs and snobs..
So we prayed right there in that moment to receive Christ and she repeated after me and hearing those words come from her mouth was truly an amazing experience..one I will never forget..How awesome is our God!! I shared with her all the wisdom God had given me in hopes that I could pass on some of what I have come to know..
Salvation has come!! Assurance in Heaven was finally hers! I could immediately see the peace of that decision and assurance come over her. So the journey begins!! She has been given new life and a new heart. My prayer for her is that she runs the race with endurance all the way to the end, placing all her hope and trust in Him who saved her...that she would surrender ALL of herself to Him and SERVE Him to Glorify Him!

NOTE: We had previously scheduled an appointment to meet with Pastor Clay (children's pastor at Parkwood) on June 1 at 3:45 to actually talk about this due to the way that night went I spoke about in the beginning..but it seems God was not willing to wait. I guess we will make known to Pastor Clay of her decision and make this known to the Church Body in a public profession and then seek to baptize her in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

A very special day in the Bailey family..:) :) :)

EB