ENCOURAGED IN HEART

Today’s a very special day at the Fink home…at breakfast, my “baby”, Caleb, decided to accept Jesus into his heart!

And, it’s been a little difficult for this crazy Jersey girl Momma to stop leaking from my tear ducts…

We were doing our morning devotion where John the Baptist was telling the people to turn to God. And all the peeps that he spoke with had to offer is that, “Thanks any way John…but my great, great, great granddaddy is Abraham – so we’re all good…go on to preach elsewhere.” (Based on Luke 3:1-20)

I asked, “Is that true boys, will that man go to heaven because his great, great, great granddaddy was Abraham?”

In unison, Jake and Cal said, “No!”

I asked, “Well, how do you get into heaven then?”

Cal’s prompt response, “Ya gotta get dead.”

Can ya stand it?

“Well, you do have to be dead to go to heaven, that’s right Caleb!” I assured him while thinking, I’m not really making a clear point here…

Smiling at his little brother’s response, Jake said, “You need to have Jesus in your heart!”

Where Cal promptly replied, “I want to do that today. I want to ask Jesus into my heart.”

Believe you me, we asked and talked to Cal about “salvation” before, and he was not interested in the “heaven program”…at all. And the whole water baptism thing? Just really silly and rather unnecessary in his mind.

I asked, “Jake, would you like to lead your brother in the prayer?”

“Yes.” Like a solider, Jake rose up from his side of the kitchen table and marched to Cal’s side, looked at him square in the face and said, “Caleb, do you accept Jesus into your heart?”

Cal said, “Yes.”

Just to make sure Cal understood his decision, Jake and I shared reading Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23 and Romans 10:13. We talked about how serious our “bad choices”, sins, are and how awesome Jesus is for forgiving us. Do you get that?

Cal got it.

We prayed.

(Cal, just moments after praying!)

And, I’m a leaking mess…

God you are awesome! I feel a huge delight, that the babies that the Finkster and I prayed for while still in my tummy, have lived into their own personal choice of salvation, at their own time…not a time dictated by a church regimine…but as a personal choice.

Now, the exciting and challenging lifelong journey on how to not just be a Christian, but how to act like one begins!

I found this quote two days ago, and it just fits today: “The deepest longings we feel on earth, as parents, as lovers, are mere flickers of the hungering desire God feels for us.” Phillip Yancey

Thank you so much for your prayers, my father is doing well. The surgery was a little longer and a bit more intricate than thought, but Pop is doing well. I was able to speak with him last night and he sounded groggie, but good. His recovery fully initiated as he begged both the pre and post op nurses for coffee. He was successful only with the post op nurse, and that was after he handled his ice chips well.

Well it’s clear that this nut didn’t fall too far from the java bean tree…

I was reassurred of his recovery this morning, as he was pimping his morning nurse for, “Real food…I wouldn’t feed this food to my worst enemy.” Grandma Karl would have been proud of her son, that he did use his manners as he closed his request with, “Thank you love, sorry I’m being grumpy.”

Thank you, for your prayers covered my father! God sends His saints to be His hands and feet. Yesterday was no exception. My dear friend for the past twenty, cough, cough…) years, Rocco (yes, he’s Italian), is a surgeon in New Jersey. He saw my Facebook status and the next thing I know, my sister emails me that Rocco found Deb and Mary to say Pop looked good in the recovery room.

It meant so much to Pop that Rock came to check on him in the recovery room…me too.

I wrote my thanks to Rocco last night that it’s, “Good to have friends in high places!”

(Rocco and I at our high school graduation.)

and a God who treds in the high places!

He who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man,
he who turns dawn to darkness,
and treads the high places of the earth—
the LORD God Almighty is his name.
Amos 4:13 (New International Version)

Thank you so much for the prayers, and I ask if you would please continue them! I like to know what the people I pray for look like, (part of my charm), here’s my cute Pop:

Today, I’m not asking God for the perfect buyer for our home, or that I have a victorous day of eating, or that I can get published somewhere. Those things pale in comparison to my petitions this morning. Today I’m asking my heavenly Father to protect my earthly father. Pop is going for carotid artery surgery as he’s more than 80% blocked. God’s clearly protected him from a stroke. And that’s not all. A quintuple bypass, three cancers, ileostomy, knee replacement, and I’m just getting warmed up.

I’ve had a front row seat and I know God’s track record, it’s one that I’d place my life on.

Would you please pray for my father, Pete Karl, today as he has carotid artery surgery. Not just for the surgeon’s hand to guide steadily, and the nursing and medical staff to treat him tenderly. I also ask for you to pray specifically for his salvation.

This past spring break week, the boys and I went up to be with Pop. We had a great time as we always do. My father and I are both conservatives with dented senses of humor, so it’s almost always a bowl full of belly laughs. One night though, God allowed my father and I to have a “nuts and bolts” kind of disucssion at the kitchen table. The same kitchen table that I sat at every night for dinner, on the milk can, (being the youngest didn’t always pay off!). The same kitchen table that hosted the majority of my sister’s and my friends secrets. The same kitchen table that I learned of Mom’s breast cancer. The same kitchen table I told Pop that I was going into the Air Force. The same kitchen table that, two weeks ago, we discussed salvation.

Pop said, “Cause I need to work out my salvation here on this earth.” I replied, “No, Pop, you don’t. Jesus made it so easy. If you had to work for it, it wouldn’t be a free gift.” As we discussed the nuts and bolts, Pop rested on, “That’s just something we disagree about.”

Please pray for my father’s health, physically and most importantly, spiritually. That he says, “Yes” to the entire gift Jesus has for him.

For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m writing about, salvation is not a difficult give to receive. But, like a UPS package, you have to say “yes” to receive the package into your arms. It’s just this easy:

That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9 (New International Version)

My prayer for Pop today is Psalm 121:

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.