From the Mouths of My Loves

Justice: How can you tell if a caterpillar is a boy or girl?

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JJ: Mommy, do hear that noise? That noise that kind of sounds like a snake? Well, if you hear it don’t worry, it’s just me trying to cool off my mouth.

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Jayla: I wish I was 18.
Me: But why? Once you turn 18 you have to move out of the house and you can’t live with Mommy and Daddy anymore.
Jayla: Why?
Me: Because when you are 18 you are considered an adult. That’s when people go off to college and they don’t really need their Mommy and Daddy to take care of them as much anymore.
Jayla: Ok I don’t want to be 18.
Me: (:

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Justice: Hey Mom – you know what’s crazy about the world? There is only one way to heaven, but many ways to get to hell.

[When he said this it made me think of Matthew 7:13-14 ~ Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. I love how God is placing these deeper thoughts in Justice’s mind and heart. Much of what he says while thinking out loud is scriptural, even if he doesn’t know it yet!]

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A little background on this next one. In the evening we often go around town for a walk. JJ and Justice ride their bikes and usually get quite a distance ahead of us. The route we take has a big hill about halfway through. JJ usually hops off his bike and walks it down. On this particular time, he and Justice had approached the hill by themselves. JJ told me the following later on when we got home from the walk...

JJ: Mommy, you know that big hill? I was so scared to go down it and I wasn’t going to do it. Then Justice told me, “JJ, God is always with you and He will help you. You don’t need to be afraid." So I went down the hill on my bike. And I made it!

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JJ (in a sad voice last weekend): Mommy, there was only one thing that I didn’t like about school on Friday. Some people made fun of my purple socks. [JJ has these all-purple NBA socks that he loves and have always been his favorite.]

Me: Oh, I am sorry sweetie - sometimes that happens at school. That doesn’t feel very good when people make fun of you does it….

I was so surprised that he had said this that it kind of caught me off-guard. I sort of downplayed my initial response because I didn’t want him to worry too much about it all. I then told JJ to tell Jake because I knew he would have some good advice. About 10 minutes later he told him and the convo went like this:

Jake: They made fun of Jesus first. That’s how people treated Jesus too.
Me: That’s true. Remember JJ that the soldiers put a purple robe on Jesus, and a crown of thorns and they mocked him and called him a king? They were doing that to make fun of him and to be mean.
Jayla chimes in: PURPLE IS MY FAVORITE COLOR!
Jake: You know what I would do? I would make sure that you wear your purple socks again this week!
JJ: No! I’m not!
Jake: If you worry all the time about what other people think about you, then you are going to have a miserable life, and a miserable 13 years of school. You know what? People used to make fun of Daddy at school too. You know what they made fun of Daddy about in high school? Because I wore sweats to school every day. But you know what? I didn’t care what they thought. So every day I made sure that I kept wearing sweats to school.
JJ: Well, I tried to tell them that they were NBA socks, but they were all talking and being too loud so they couldn’t hear me.
Me: That’s good that you tried to tell them. Be confident in who you are. God made you unique and not like anybody else…

It took less than 1 week. Every night we lay out the clothes to be worn the next day. JJ gets to pick his outfits out and I give the ‘mom approval’. On Wednesday night of this week he picked out his purple socks to wear the next day. And he wore them – with confidence. :)

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Conversation with Justice yesterday right after he came in the door off the bus...

Justice: I got to share the Bible today at school!
Me: Oh really?! Awesome! How did it come up?
Justice: Well in art class today some kids were saying that you can get to heaven if you go to church and are a nice person. But I told them that is not the way to heaven. I said that you can only get to heaven if you believe in Jesus. And even if you aren’t a nice person, you can still get to heaven because Jesus can wash your sins away.
Me: That is so cool! What did they say?
Justice: Well, my art teacher told me that we had to stop talking about it. She said that we can only talk about those kinds of subjects at home.
Me: (BIG SMILE) Keep talking about it buddy – even at school! I am so proud of you for sharing your faith and truth with your classmates.

This is one of the coolest things about sending our kids to public school. I LOVE that they get the opportunity to share about Jesus in this setting. Justice is so bold for the gospel. Gives me goosebumps to think about what God might be preparing him for in the future!