Heart to Hearts in the Car

Short visit with T today. We decided to do some "regular stuff" instead of a grand outing....normal family stuff. I (Mallory) picked up T from her foster home and we met Kevin in Brandon to run errands and make some returns. The rides in the car gave us wonderful opportunities to have "girl" talk.

I asked how her day was at school. She replied, "Awesome. Wanna know why?" "Sure," I quickly chimed. "It was an awesome day because I was counting down the hours until I got to see you guys!" Talk about your heart melting. After making returns and running through McDonald's for some sweet tea, we had to head back to her foster home for homework time.  Kevin and I had Christmas play practice at church. T asked, "what is your play about?" I told her it's a story that takes place the night Jesus was born. Do you know the story around the birth of Jesus?" She shook her head to reply no. "Would you like me to tell you?" She bounced back, "yes!"

I  proceeded to tell her in the simplest way possible about how Jesus was born. She was so quick to catch on to subtle details like how long it took the wise men to follow the star to meet Jesus. As I told the story, I slowly transitioned into Jesus' perfect life and how He was arrested and put to death for sharing God's love and how to have forgiveness of sins. I also shared the good news that Jesus was not hindered by death, but He rose from the dead and gave His followers hope for a future and a home in heaven.

T sweetly interjected, "I need to tell you something. " "What is that, dear." "I have not been baptized," she admitted. What an awesome question for me to share that baptism is not what gets us into heaven, but it was by Jesus' sacrifice that makes us worthy of heaven. It is nothing we could do on our own, but God did it for us. I explained that baptism was just an outward picture of what Jesus did on the inside of our heart when we enter into a personal relationship with Him as our Savior. T continued to ask questions of how and why Kevin and I live our lives to please and honor God. It was a great talk!

As we pulled into the neighborhood, I closed our conversation with "you can think and pray about all that we've talked about. God hears your prayers any time whether you talk out loud or speak within the quietness of your heart. " She said, "God knows everything and He knows everything I need. " Yes, He does. It's amazing that He brought us all together to be a family, and this was His plan even before we were even born!

It was a perfect car ride to share with her how much God loves her and that He cares about Sweet T. This is something we've prayed for. We wanted T to open the door to her religious questions. We don't want to push our beliefs on her but allow God to open her heart and draw her to Himself. These are decisions she should make for herself and not just to please us. We're just blessed to be able to have these discussions with her and be a testimony of God's love to her.

T will be one of the few  in the world to have a more clear understanding of what it means to be adopted into God's family, because she has been adopted into our family. Earthly adoption is a beautiful picture of God's adoption of us into His family.

Ephesians 1:5-6
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. ⁶ So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.