A Conversation With Ellice on April 6th, 2009

I posted this on Facebook back in April, but I wanted to post it on my blog as well.

I thought you might want to hear about a conversation that I had with Ellice last night. I have had lots of conversations with Ellice lately about the gospel. She has understood that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but it never seemed like she understood that she personally had to make a decision to trust in Jesus. Well last night on our way home we were talking about Brian going to the Congo. She seemed very scared about him getting bitten by bugs and getting sick. Brian told her that she should pray for him. So she said, I'm going to pray for you right now. It was like she didn't want to take the chance that she might forget to pray. So she prayed for him and after she was done I started talking to her about how we should also pray for Daddy's trip that God would be able to use him so that people can come to know Jesus. She says, 'um, I just don't pray like that." So that started us on a conversation about people needing Jesus and how not everyone goes to heaven. I was kind of at a loss for words at one point wondering how I could make her understand that she personally needs to decide to trust in Jesus to forgive her sins. Well, then it dawned on me that I was right about her age when I made that decision so I decided to share my testimony with her. I shared about how when I was just her age I didn't understand how it was that people went to heaven and I asked my Daddy about it. I told her that my Daddy explained to me that Jesus had died on the cross for my sins and that I needed to decide to trust in Jesus to forgive me of my sins. I told her that my Daddy helped me to pray and I decided to ask Jesus to save me from my sins. She thought about that for a minute and she said, "mom, I think I want to pray and ask Jesus to forgive my sins. So she did. I didn't coach her at all in what to say, she just bowed her head in the car and asked Jesus to forgive her of her sins. I was shocked at the whole thing, kind of wondering, is this for real. We talked more about it to clarify with her what she had done. We talked about how when you trust Jesus to forgive your sins that the holy spirit lives inside you and helps you to follow Him. She really got excited about that. In fact even today she keeps talking about how the holy sprit is inside her. She also has continually talked about how she wants to obey now and I didn't even really say much to her about that. She came up with that on her own. It is very exciting for me. It is interesting to see a young child accept Christ. I know that it will be something that we will have to keep talking about to make sure that she understands. She said to Annyah today, "Annyah, you don't have the Holy spirit."