One of the blogs I read (one of the 147 million orphans girls) has inspired me to give each of my kids a special "name" of sorts. I have thought about it frequently and for Ezekiel I have decided on "my passion." Those of you who know him know he is very passionate, whether in the positive aspect or negative. If I am excited about something and want an excited partner, I just tell Ezekiel and he voices that excitement as well. He is loud in his emotions and wears them on his sleeve. He is funny, excitable, and genuine. Sometimes my heart hurts with love for him (as with each of my kids).
Three nights ago, I had this experience. The kids were eating dinner and I was reading them a story from their Children's Bible. It was about Joseph and his time in Egypt and then how he saw his brothers during the famine and forgave them. We started talking about how God forgives us for our sins because of Jesus. Ezekiel had some questions that I answered and then said he wanted Jesus in his heart. He prayed (on his own with no prompting): "Dear God, please be in all our hearts and be all over us. I don't know if you heard me or not, but I think you did. Amen." Violet then wanted to pray and he whispered in her ear (which, if you have ever heard a 5-year-old whisper, isn't so quiet) "ask Jesus to make me better" so then Violet asked Jesus to help Ezekiel be a better boy. This was after a rather challenging day with him, as some days he is very resistant to instruction and has a hard time being respectful with his words. But this dinner time was the best part of my day. My heart and soul rejoice as I see spiritual hunger in my kids. Hearing them pray makes me want to cry...especially as Ez told me he had never asked Jesus to be a part of his life and he really wanted to. My heart hurt.
Then today after a time out, Ezekiel and I prayed together. I encouraged him to pray. He asked me: "whats that word that you say when I should get a spank but you don't give me one?" I told him GRACE. He then prayed: "Dear God, please give Mom lots of grace so that she doesn't discipline me." He is hilarious. I want to really understand him and how to be the BEST mom to him. I'm doing my best ...and after praying daily for patience with him for the last 5 years, I feel like I have a supernatural patience...not all the time, but a lot of the time.
Ezekiel is a special gift to our family. As I laughed at him wearing his plastic fireman hat in the shower tonight, I took a minute to thank Jesus for that him...
3 comments:
What a sweet, sweet blog, Carrie. Thanks for putting your feelings and thoughts down, in blog form, for us so that we can pray along with you for each of the kids. I love "Ezekiel" stories and just today I ran across the story of him when you were trying to teach him about accepting candy from strangers and being taken by a stranger. =o)
You are doing a great job with your energetic 5 year old (& 7 year old and almost 3 year old)! I couldn't be more proud of you (& Jason, too)
Thanks for sharing this Carrie! How wonderful that you read to them; someday they will talk about that like "...remember when mom use to read stories to us at dinner time..." and they will be 30 years old and you will be .....well, you get the picture. :)
It is true love that you do it. dan
I love him. And V. And G. And you guys. Reagan and Reese decided 2 nights ago that they would marry Gavin and EZ. We told them firmly which one's they may have. You know the answer there:) I love you, C!!
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