In case you don't remember, I wrote a post a few months ago about being impacted by the owners of one of our local Chinese restaurants proudly displaying their baptism certificate (that looked JUST LIKE THESE) on their wall right by the register, and the huge yet quiet profession of faith it makes to each of their customers that come to their restaurant. And I was a little ashamed that, to that point, our baptism certificates were just sitting in some drawer somewhere, not really placing the appropriate value on them at all.
So glad to have finally changed that though. And I had also mentioned before that I actually did not receive a certificate after my baptism (many moons ago), so, I had to track down the information from the church where I was baptized, and then I created my own to match the ones the others from my family have.
There is still space on the wall for when my little two make their BIG decisions, and actually they got really excited when I explained to them what these papers were, and both said, "I can't wait to have one too." :)
And I hung these while my big two boys were away at camp, and when my second son came back, it was the FIRST THING he saw when he came in, and he commented immediately with a big, beaming smile, "You put them up!"
See, kids are always proud of the awards and achievements they make in life, and love even more when their parents show pride in that, right? What one thing could my children do that would bring me more pride than accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and publicly confessing to live their lives for Him? Really!! This is the single accomplishment that really matters, and I want my children to know how very proud I am of them for that, and I want THEM to be proud of this decision themselves, and know what a really big honor it is to be part of the body of Christ.
While they were away as well, I added in a few other little decorations around the house that also caught their attention. I had read a blog a few weeks back that inspired me to place scripture verses in well seen areas all over our house, because this is an easy way to get the Word of God into their little minds to use at the times when they will need them most. So, I picked some great every day living verses, and have them distributed all over, and the kids were eager to go around and find them. I will actually probably try to add to this and change it up from time to time to get more and more important verses into them.
I'm always on the lookout for ways to strengthen my children's faith, and these are just some of the recent ones that have really inspired me to action. :)
