Tears of Joy, Redemption and Forgiveness Shared last nite.....

I have shared before that we try to do Bible every nite as a family. Most nites we do come together to read a Bible story, or go thru a devotional and pray. We also talk thru any issues or praises that we have experienced in the day. Right now we are reading from this book and it is actually very good and we have had some great discussions because of how the stories are presented. They either give us a diff. perspective or share a fact that causes us to discuss the story more in depth. For instance we read the story about Cain and Abel. After Cain murdered his brother Abel God punished him telling him he was to wander homeless for the rest of his days. Cain in response to God said, " ....You are sending me to certain death. If strangers find me, wandering hungry and helpless, they're bound to kll me. " The question we brought up was if Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel and they were the first family....then where did the " strangers" come from ? Since there were not that many people on the earth at this time it made us think....

The nite before I asked the kids to answer this question for their journal and then share it with us last nite, " What did you do with my son , Jesus ?" From that question Isaac had a special time with the Lord helped by Naty...visit her blog for her perspective :)http://sisterofmany.blogspot.com/ .

During our Bible time last nite Isaac shared about his rededicating his life to Jesus and he started to cry sweet and precious tears of joy about it. Then Josiah's hand went up and he shared how he wants to start a fresh and begin again . ( He has been struggling for awhile with lying ) and he started to shed tears of redemption and then Cate asked to share. She had gotten in trouble earlier today and said some mean things and she apologized and she to was in tears of forgiveness... which made many of us now cry. It was actually a very precious time when the Holy Spirit came in a very real way to our family during our Bible time. This does not happen every time or even frequently but when it does there is no doubt how sweet our time of sharing and praying and reading the Word together is blessed by the presence of the Lord in such a moving way. I encourage other families to try to meet and do some Bible time as often as you can...It is not just a memory making experience for us . It often is life changing and moving us towards a closer walk with Jesus.