Several days ago, Natalie came to me and said she wanted to pray to ask Jesus into her heart, on Wednesday at church. (I teach her age group of girls in the kids program.)  Since I got baptized when I was eight without really knowing why, other than that my sister was getting baptized, I wanted to make sure this was really genuine and not something she just wanted to do to get recognition that night. (We hand out awards for different things at the end of every service; the weekly services are sort of a year-long vacation bible school format.) So I asked her a bunch of questions and then said we'd talk about it with Daddy later that night. Phil and I talked to her that night and asked her lots of specific questions, such as, "Why did Jesus die on the cross?" (To take away our sins),  "Did he stay dead?" (No, he came back to life after three days), and "Do you know what it means to be a sinner?" (Yes, it means I make mistakes but Jesus takes away my sins if I ask him to.) and so on.

I thought that six was a little young to be making this decision, but she really knew what she was asking to do when she wanted to pray to ask Jesus to come into her heart, so how can I deny that or say "you need to wait"?? If God has opened her eyes and made her understand, then she's ready.  (In fact there are several times that I'm amazed how my kids seem to have a better understanding of the things of God than I do. Of course this shouldn't surprise me, since the Bible says he has blinded the eyes of the wise and revealed them to little children, right?)

Anyway, so on Wednesday night at the end of the activities, we always have a prayer time with the girls in her group, as we talk about the things we did that night and tie it all together with scripture reading and praying for each other. I told everyone that first, Natalie had decided that she wanted to pray to ask Jesus to come into her heart, so all the girls prayed with us and I led Natalie in saying the sinner's prayer. She repeated everything after me (she even spoke out loud and boldly --not whispering like I thought she might). After that, she was just glowing. I mean really beaming. She was excited. As we went back into the big group room for the "final celebration" time, she told the other leaders and Pastor Kathy (the children's pastor) that she asked Jesus into her heart.  She came downstairs and told Phil and everyone else she knew, too. 

Yesterday morning, Natalie decided all on her own that she should start reading her Bible every day, just like I do. We were upstairs cleaning up and getting dressed and I told the kids that we needed to go downstairs now and get started on some things, but Natalie asked if she could stay upstairs for awhile to read her Bible first. (Uh, yeah. Of course.) She came down about 15 minutes later and I asked her what she read. She told me "About how God made the world, in Genesis." 

So cool!