a mixture of mercy, grace, fire and brimstone

so you know, you have these moments where you're just watching your kids be, well...kids...and then out of their mouths comes something so profound...so wise beyond their years...

and you think, WOW, what a privilege to be guiding this little one...shaping them...

and so it was wednesday night. i'd dropped austin off at youth group and had not intended to stay for the wednesday night service...but changed my mind...of course, i had to sit in the back because of the little ones...

they had index cards on the seats for us...asked us to write down our needs...our prayer requests...and to leave them on the chair when we left the service.

so i poured out my requests...the cries of my heart...big, seemingly impossible things for our family...

carson brought me HIS card and showed it to me...it said something like this:

glkjiugdihgjfkmcv,mceoiruoejcvlm mlkjcoeurlekjljbvlkjbeykeh'gaj'jee

and i said, "hey buddy, great job."

he was not so easily dismissed.

"BUT MOM, DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT SAYS?"

i had to confess, "no, carson, i don't...what's it say?"

his answer stopped my heart.

"IT SAYS THAT JESUS IS STRONG AND POWERFUL...

AND THAT JORDAN IS MY SISTER."

and he's RIGHT...all of those things are true :)

it was like God KNEW that i needed to hear that the things on my card are not impossible to him!

and i looked at carson a little bit differently...

of course, this is where the fire and brimstone come in :)

i felt so proud of my little God-lover...thought, "wow, we must be DOING SOMETHING RIGHT...he seems to 'get it.'"

fast forward to thursday night...less than 24 hours later.

we were hanging out with my friend stacey and her kids...the wise, profound one had to go potty LOL and so i left hudson with stacey...

i wasn't gone but a few minutes...i came back to THIS question from stace:

"WHAT KIND OF CHURCH ARE YOU GOING TO?" with a weird look on her face :)

i was almost afraid to ask why...but i did.

apparently hudson had looked at her and said, point blank,

"STACEY, YOU NEED TO WORSHIP JESUS...

BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T...

HE'LL KILL YOU."

ahhhhhhh...so much for proud momma.