Our little Evangelist

Today over lunch Taylor tells me "I don't think my teacher knows about Jesus."
To which I reply, "Why do you think that?"
Taylor: "Well, she just never talks about him." (Hmm, how many of us ADULTS claim to know Jesus but we just never talk about him, chew on that.)
I then try to explain to her that even though her kindergarten is on the same campus as her Christian preschool this school isn't allowed to teach about the Bible. So her teacher might know about Jesus, she just isn't allowed to teach about Him.
Taylor was appalled! She says, "That is such a bad rule! We should just break that rule and tell them that they don't need that rule because the Bible is a VERY important book." She continues with "I know! I will tell my teacher everything I know about Jesus so that she will know and then she won't get in trouble because I will be teaching about Him! Then, when I get older, I will study and learn more and more about Him and tell her that too!"
Then she asks, "Will I get in trouble for that mom?"
To which I just reply, "No baby. You tell anyone you want about Jesus."
Still shocked by this 'rule' she says, "I bet that rule makes God very sad because He wants people to learn more about Him."

This whole conversation I pretty much just let her talk to see where she would go with it and how she would respond. I must say, if we all had the passion and urgency that our Taylor girl has in spreading the gospel things would look a LOT different!

Let your little light shine baby girl! Public school or not, people NEED Christ and she gets that.

(Side note: The property RIGHT next to our church building a Muslim prayer center is being built.) A while back, out of her typical curiosity she asked what they are building. We explained to her what it is and what will be going on there. She then asked if we could get up early the next morning to go talk to them to tell them about Jesus so that they can stop praying to the wrong god and so they can know God. I explained that right now it is just the construction workers there, the people that will be praying there aren't there yet since the building isn't finished.
She replied so matter of factly, "Well, do the construction people need to know about Jesus?"

This girl isn't 5 yet Ya'll! She is on mission to tell everyone she meets whatever she knows about Jesus. She knows she still has a lot to learn about Him but that doesn't stop her. She will share every bit that she does know and as she learns more, she'll share that too.
This is such a perfect picture of that child-like faith Jesus spoke about. Such a challenge and inspiration to us to just share whatever we do know, even if we don't know it all. Because guess what, NO ONE knows all there is to know about God (in case you didn't already know that) ;). So just share what you do know and let God take care of the rest!

 Lets all take a few lessons from Taylor: defy the rules and tell the world about Jesus!

In Awe

As usual, the summer has passed in a hot blur. Although it has been loaded with tons of fun, adventures, vacation, birthdays, re-uniting with long time friends, visits with family, fun ministry opportunities, etc. I have failed to blog about any of it. Purely out of simply not taking the time to do it. So for anyone out there that has been eagerly awaiting to know what has been going on in the lives of the Mahaffie's, I am so sorry to let you down. We are busy as usual. However, I am not going to use this posting to catch you up on the past 2 months of our lives. I may eventually get pictures up of some of our adventures, we will just have to see how that goes.

Dan and I have been meaning to go through a DVD series we purchased a while back on parenting. Tonight we finally cracked open the case and watched the first session. In the brief 25 minute long session God showed me once again how I let my busyness and task oriented self get in the way of giving my best to my kids. Not because I am ignoring my children in order to get stuff done (God revealed that major area of sin a while back and I refuse to go back). Rather, I am failing to see God in the mundane tasks of everyday life, therefore I fail to show my kids the awe of God in every aspect of our lives. I came across this little story in a book I am reading and I think it will better illustrate what I am trying to say:

 "The story is told of three women washing clothes. A passerby asks each what she is doing.

'Washing clothes' was the first answer.

'A bit of household drudgery' was the second.

'I'm mothering three young children who some day will fill important and useful spheres in life, and wash-day is a part of my grand task in caring for these souls who shall live forever' was the third."

How often do I look at laundry in the way the third woman responded? Hmmm, wanna guess? My response in usually the first and on a grumpy day probably the second. I include my kids in household duties like laundry and such for a few reasons but I don't always see laundry as an opportunity to point my children to the awe of our God.

I am not writing all of this to say woe is me, I'm a bad mama for not doing these things. I am writing this in excitement and hopefully as a challenge to anyone that may read it. How much more exciting will our days and "tasks" be when we choose to see everything, I mean everything, we do as an opportunity to point our kids to Christ. How much more naturally the gospel flows into conversation rather than coming up with these great theological speeches that leave the 4 year old looking at you like you are speaking a foreign language.

So tomorrow when we all rise and shine early to take Taylor to her first day of Kindergarten (Yippee! and *sniff* already?! all at the same time) I look forward to using my to-do list as opportunities to leave my kids in awe of the grandeur and amazement of our creator.

So the next time you are turning those socks right side out because for some reason NO ONE else seems to know how to do that when they take them off, use the opportunity to thank God for each one the feet that wear those socks, pray for them, make a matching game out of it with your kids, use examples of feet in scriptures (washing of feet, how beautiful are the feet of those that bring good news, etc). God is in the mundane, we just fail to see Him in it therefore we fail to leave our kids in total awe of Him daily.

All of that to say, I am actually a bit excited to do laundry tomorrow and the rest of the things that I have on my list. It's going to be an awe-some day!