Hot Lava and Prayers

Daniel has an Uncle Obsession of sorts. For the longest time Uncle Mike has had top billing, but lately Daniel has been asking a lot of questions and telling stories about his Uncle Dan. Tonight we were snoozling (a Bob-term meaning cuddling prior to snoozing) in bed and Daniel started talking about uncles. (I’ll have to think of how it started, but want to get some of this down before it leaves my brain.) He asked if we could pray to his uncle…the one “that died.”
“No sweetie, we can only pray to God, but we can pray and ask God if He would say Hi to Uncle Dan for us.”
“Yeah, I want to do that.”
So I prayed, “Dear God, we ask that you would tell Uncle Dan hi for us and that we miss him. And thank you so much for his love for you and the way he believed the Bible.” Then Daniel asked how he died. He knows it was a motorcycle. I told him that another car ran into him. Okay, how much information is too much information for a 5 year old? I don’t know. But he asks about it sometimes and I try to tell him the truth.
“Was it a bad guy?”
“No, it was a little old lady.”
Long silence and then this sweet little five-year-old voice declares, “I want that girl to die.”
Wow!
I told him how she didn’t mean to do it. “You know how mommy sometimes runs over the curbs in the van and I say, ‘Oops, I ran into a curb!’ I don’t do it on purpose, I’m just not being very careful. Mommy is not a bad guy. Same with that girl. She didn’t mean to. She just wasn’t very careful. She’s still sad about it sometimes.”
“Can we pray for her?”
WOW!
“Sure.”
This time Daniel prayed. “God please tect (protect) the girl and not make her be sad.” Or something like that. I can’t remember the words he used. Just the meaning and that it was his idea to pray and just how incredible it was to witness that kind of faith in a five-year-old.

* * * * * *

Now I remember part of how this whole conversation got started. It was, of all things, hot lava! Daniel and his brothers have been playing the typical childhood game where you try not to step on carpet (or the colored tiles, or the rug, etc.) because it’s “hot lava.” So he’s been talking about hot lava lately.
“I don’t want to go in hot lava.” He states just matter-of-factly.
“No, that would hurt.” I agree.
“Where is hot lava?”
“Hawaii.”
“Hawaii? Where’s Hawaii?” I told him how Hawaii was some islands in the Pacific Ocean. “Hawaii has hot lava?”
“Yep.”
“Whoa, how did God do that, Jenny?”
Then Daniel started telling me about how, “Some guy had hot lava and made metal.” And something about an airplane.
I asked him, “Where did you learn about all this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you learn it at school?”
“No, I don’t think at McDonalds… or Chic-Fil-A.”
“Did you watch a movie about it?”
“Yeah I think at my uncle’s… my uncle that died.” Which is not possible since Dan died two years before Daniel was born. But Daniel has made up stories about Uncle Dan before. In the past it would have really freaked me out thinking it was some sort of reincarnation or a ghost, but I think he is just trying to make Uncle Dan more real to him because he’s obviously real to Bob and I. Maybe he thinks he should remember Uncle Dan so he invents memories.
One of the reasons we think Daniel has this ongoing obsession with uncles, other than the obvious fact that he has some incredibly awesome uncles, is because he lives with his mommy and daddy. Now, that might not make a whole lot of sense to those who are in “normal” families. But in our family our kids take turns praying for each other’s moms who are, or have been, in jail. Daniel, not wanting to be left out, started praying for his uncle, who recently moved to Texas. While the kiddos make pictures and write letters for their moms, Daniel makes pictures and writes letters for his uncle. At dinner and at bedtime the other boys will often add, “and Daniel’s uncle” after they’ve asked God to protect their moms. I smile each time they do that knowing how a certain uncle would definitely appreciate these innocent, unknowing, and unspecific prayers.

Building Faith

God is just so amazingly Good! He has been especially astounding me lately. Then this morning I felt His presence and blessing so strongly upon our congregation. I get misty-eyed thinking about it now hours later. Our church has been buildingless for about 5 years. Sometime I will go into the details of how we found grace by leaving Grace and how we came to be called Faith. We have the land and some money. Most of us want to build a church. After much God-searching over the past few weeks our church elders have come to the conclusion that it truly is Impossible, Irresponsible, and Inappropriate for us to start building a church.... therefore we will start building a church! Amen! Closed fist thrown up in the air with loud, "Woo-Hoo!" Now I'll have to back up and offer a bit more background because that just sounds crazy.
Years ago our Pastor prayed, wisely, "Lord, please make it impossible for us to build a church." We want God, not us, to build His church, not our church. We set up a building commitee and started a building fund. Then things got a little scary (the inordinate cost of building, negative input at a fragile time, fear from our collective past of losing (being kicked out of) church buildings) and we've just been sitting in one place, buildingless, for a long time.
Partway through the "impossible, inappropriate, irresponsible" sermon, I was getting a little frustrated. It has been so painfully obvious to my family that we should start building and let God ... well LET God period. So when the three I's were introduced with scripture to back them, I found myself almost giving in with, "If our elders still can't see this, and now they are using scripture to prove this lack of faith as being justified, maybe we don't want to be part of this church afterall." I hate even writing that down. I LOVE my church! We've been through so much together. I love our pastor. I love each of our elders and their families. But God is my All In All. I can't be in a church that goes purposefully out of His will.
Then Pastor Bob posed a series of questions...
1)Do we need a church building? The answer was "Yes, we need a building of Faith."
2)Would God use a building to build our faith?
3)Does God intend to build faith by building Faith?
I remember nodding my head in agreement to all of the above. When it first occurred to me that we were going ahead with building, I remember glancing up from my notes (My hubby wasn't able to be there this morning and I wanted to be able to relay accurate information to him.) and meeting eyes with one of my best friends whose husband is an elder and dear friend. She was smiling with tears in her eyes. Later she told me she had been watching me write, and laughing at my facial expressions. I was a little irritated in the beginning. I found out my dear MIL was doing the same thing across the room from me. Taking notes, being irritated, thinking, "I guess this is it." For anyone who has been in a church split please know that I would never leave a church family because they didn't do something I wanted them to do... ie build a building. It just was so clearly God's Will that we build. I think that is why today was so sweet. God has been speaking. We've been praying and listening. God spoke some more... and we heard Him! I just love that! You could feel Him in that room with us. Pastor Bob mentioned this morning our first Sunday meeting after things went so wrong at our last church. Faith, which began with 5-families, had a massive population explosion one December day 4 1 /2 years ago. Most of us can remember clearly how Spirit-filled that room was. There was singing, tears, hugs, and just such a feeling of homecoming. Today felt quite similar. We are on the right track!