Back to the basics

I bought our 100 pound, 1 year old rottweiler a few toys today. My goal was for her to be entertained in a nondestructive way. I had seen a suggestion on a doggie website about the toys that you can hide doggie treats in, and it gives the doggies lots of play time with the reward of a treat. Well, not this doggie. She had chewed it apart in 10 minutes - she did like her treats though. I spent $6 for a toy that lasted 10 minutes!!! Then, I was pouring milk in Tyler's cereal and emptied the milk jug. I thought - why not give her this to play with. Although she did chew it up quite a bit, she played with it for the rest of the evening - like 2 hours!! (I did wash it first) I spent $6 on a dog toy and I could have given her an empty milk jug for free!! Kinda reminds me of how kids play with the empty boxes on Christmas.

Madison asked me this question a couple of days ago "If all of us were in a car accident; you, daddy, Lo Lo, me, Tyler, and Lauren, and we all died - would we all go to Heaven"? I told her that Daddy and I would go to Heaven because we have asked Jesus into our hearts and made Him Lord of our life. I believe Tyler and Lauren would go to Heaven because they love Jesus, but are not really old enough to make a decision about asking Jesus into their hearts yet. And I think you (Madi) are right at the place in your life where you are able to make that decision and be held accountable to God. Sometimes I think we make "salvation" out to be so much harder than it really is. The Bible says "Believe in your heart, and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you will be saved". Madi has grown up a preachers kid, and knows a lot about the Bible. Even more than that, I really believe that she loves God with all of her heart. I have said before that I can really picture her growing up to be a missionary. She has a passion for helping hurting people, and for people who don't know God. So here's where my thoughts are running together: With Matt having been a youth pastor for 10 years, we have seen MANY teenagers who thought they were saved as a child, but realized as teenagers that they didn't really understand it as a child, some of them went on to accept Christ as teenagers, some of them turned away from God and church. I have also known a few people who know they were saved as a child, and never had any doubts about it. I think Madi will be like the latter - truly accepting Christ as a child. She has a very obvious love for God and a strong faith in Him, and she will tell anybody about God in any way that she can. I think she is just at the point in her life where she wants to nail it down. We have had conversations about this several times the past year. There was a time at a revival about a year ago that I believe God was calling to her. She looked at me and said "I want to go" I said "You want to go where" And then I think she got scared, and she said "I just want to go pray" So we went to pray, that night we talked about it and she kinda backed off a little bit; so we didn't push her. We want it to be her decision - we can't force her to do it. We have talked about it several times since then, but not really gotten anywhere. She asked me tonight if we could talk about it, but I had to leave for work, so we talked for just a minute, and told her that daddy and I would talk to her some more tomorrow. I am excited, I think she is probably ready, and hopefully able to understand enough to not doubt her decision later in life.