this boy

Happy New Year everyone!!  2013 was a very full/crazy/hard/amazing/humbling year for us! We are excited for what the Lord has in store for 2014!

I wanted to post something really cool for the last day of the year.  I took Silas’ six year old pics a while ago, in early October actually, right after he lost his first tooth and got a big kid smile!  I slacked on getting them processed and posted here, but now I’m glad to make them my last post of the year 🙂

Silas is an amazing kid.  He made us parents a little over six years ago and is teaching us daily to look at things with the Father’s heart.  Some days are challenging.  He is sensitive and can be really thoughtful, but there are other times when he is just downright stubborn, and strong willed (I wonder where he gets that from? 🙂

The other day though, something happened with him, something I never want to forget.

It was Sunday.  We had finished up with church, gotten everything put away, and needed to head to a meeting.  We had about 45 minutes and half an hour of driving to do, but we also needed to swing by somewhere to grab some lunch.

In our effort to find a drive through, we passed an intersection where a man was holding a cardboard sign.  He was walking up and down this stretch of sidewalk, sort of limping actually, the sign in one hand, a cane in the other.

Silas asked what his sign said.

We go to church downtown, so it’s not out of the ordinary for us to see men and women with signs on street corners.  We’ve had discussions with the boys about what they’re doing, that they are asking for help, that maybe they don’t have a job or a place to live.  There have been a few opportunities for us to give and many more for us to pray for people.  But somehow, this was different.  Silas was different.

“Dad, I can’t read it.  What does his sign say?”

Branden turned to look as we drove by.  “It says that he’s disabled.  He’s asking for help.”

“What does ‘disabled’ mean?”

Branden explained that something might not be right with the man’s body, that maybe he was somehow injured, and that disabilites are usually permanent.

“How can we help him then?”

“What do you think is wrong?”

“What does he need?”

We talked as we drove.  Silas asked if we could bring the man something.  We explained how we needed to go to the meeting.  What about after the meeting?  Branden told him he might not be there anymore.  By this time we had gotten on the highway.  What about bringing him something from home?  We told him we lived far from where the man was.

I shared about how we can’t always help with food or money, but that we could always pray for people.  Silas began to pray, asking God to help the man get what he needed, to help with his disability.  We talked about how what the man really needed was Jesus.  Silas prayed that the man would come to know the Lord.

“Silas, sometimes we have things to do, places we need to go, but we can always pray.  And if God tells us to do something, then we do it,” I said.

“Mom, this IS what God is telling me to do, right now.  We need to go back!”

Branden and I looked at each other.  Then he switched lanes to exit the highway and turn around.

We made our way back to the intersection.  Branden pulled into a nearby parking lot and took Silas to go talk with the man.  We happened to have some water bottles in the car, and I had a granola bar and ten dollar bill in my purse, and a card that gave directions to the church.

Silas told the man that they had something they wanted to give him.  They asked him his name and about his situation.  His name is Joe and he has cancer.  He was going in for some testing this week, but he needed help.  Branden and Silas stood on the corner and prayed with him.

Most of the time, I have this mentality that I am the grown up, the teacher, the one with wisdom.  But my children have this amazing ability to prove me wrong.  It’s humbling and I am so incredibly grateful, to see Jesus in the heart of my six year old.

We were late to the meeting, and you know what?  Jesus knew that was going to happen.  I only wish I had a story like this for every time I showed up somewhere late 🙂

Silas, you are creative, curious, tenacious, soft hearted, and full of energy!  You’re a gift in our home, one that I pray we are good stewards of.  We love you very, very much son!