Annie and Jesus: A Salvation Story.

She’s crazy. That’s all.

My children are quite different, as if you didn’t know. My sweet first-born is the one I always refer to as my Missionary Child because… well, I can just see her traipsing off to some third-world country in Birkenstocks someday to feed orphans and widows.

She’s just always been bent toward Doing the Right Thing. Not that Doing the Right Thing saves you, by any means. But she made her peace with God years ago. And besides, she’s just good.

Annie….? Well, I’ll be honest: I’ve prayed hard for that one.

She’s not bad; she just loves to shake her booty and shock everyone with potty talk and nakedness and has gotten in trouble more in the first semester of kindergarten (for talking too much) than her older sister will in her entire school career.

But recently she’s been coming home from childrens’ choir on Wednesday nights with this new hunger to sing songs about Jesus. She even ditched her usual karaoke dance party music in favor of…. Jesus music. She’s singing hymns constantly.

She’s been asking questions about Jesus, about getting baptized, and about Heaven.

And the exciting thing about that is that no one comes to God unless God draws them to Himself. Just the fact that she was asking about God, and thinking about God… meant that God was working in my Annie’s heart. And I’ve been all giddy about that because… I’ve prayed for that child.

So we made an appointment with the childrens’ minister at our church to talk about it, but we didn’t think Annie was ready just yet; in spite of all of our talks together at home, she just didn’t quite get it, but Lanette sent us home with a workbook that Annie was on a mission to complete. I mean, seriously. She reminded me daily, the instant she got into the car, and again 72 times per day, about her workbook.

God drawing her to Himself, perhaps…?

So a couple of Tuesday nights ago I was out at a rare GNO, playing Pokeeno with some friends, when I get a text from her sitter, slightly frantic… ANNIE ASKED ME TO HELP HER GET JESUS IN HER HEART. SHOULD I WAIT FOR YOU TO GET HOME?  I responded, NO NO NO!!!! DO IT!!! DON’T WAIT FOR ME! God forbid she miss the window!

So we talked through all the basics with her one more time to be sure she understood that all of us sin, all of us need a Redeemer, and Jesus paid the price for us so that no other sacrifice is needed to pay the price of blood that God required, and prayed with her.

And Annie believed, and was instantly sealed by the Holy Spirit.

Guaranteed an inheritance.

Redeemed. 

Oh, she hasn’t been cured from the booty shaking and potty talking, but the amazing thing about it is that she’s still her; only now she has hope and a future and a Holy Spirit to convict her of sin on those days when she can’t stop talking in kindergarten… 

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