Peter Field, a friend and business associate of mine, sent me the following email a couple of weeks ago. I thought I’d post it here, with his permission:
Hi all my people,
Something really neat happened tonight but I have to preface my story with a little detail dating back to the summer.
We were so busy in the summer around the time of JJ’s birthday that we could not plan him a “friends party”, we just had a family dinner and celebrated his young life.
It is Jordy’s birthday today and the 14 of us that all live together (temporarily)… me and my 5, Sharon’s brother Paul and his 4, Mom & Dad and James (plus Auntie Joan a visitor not a resident!)… all joined us for dinner tonight to celebrate. Jordy wanted to have friends over but we wanted to keep things fair between the boys.
But this is what was so neat…
We had dinner and while everyone was around the table… a thought came to me. I grabbed Jordy and I stood with him in my arms before our whole family and announced that I wanted to say a few words… I told everyone how proud I am of my boy and drew attention to all his good qualities and focused on what I see God doing in him.
Then I asked if we, as a family, could spend some time praying for Jordy, thanking God for Jordy and pray blessings on him. I did not know where this would go so I suggested short sentence prayers for the kids and any adults that wanted to pray. I started and from there we spent a good 15mins as a group blessing this young lad.
Something interesting began to happen as we prayed for and blessed this young man… I felt his heart racing in my hands… like really pounding… I was wondering what was going on so I peeked… as I looked down upon my son I saw tears streaming down his face…not little guys… I’m talking gushers!
When we finished praying I asked Jordo why are you crying? He looked up at me and said “Dad I Am Soooo Happy!” He said as he heard the words of his family praying for him, blessing him and praising God his heart was filled to overflowing. He said that this is the best gift he has ever received and that this was the best birthday ever.
Now let’s keep things in perspective folks… prior to us praying he was given FIFA World Cup Soccer for the XBOX… and only a few moments later that meant nothing to him. As a father, I can’t imagine a better feeling, I was so happy to hear these sentiments from my 9 year old son. Praise God!
I looked at Sharon…Sharon looked at Paul…Paul looked at Mom…Mom looked at Joan…Joan looked at Dad…Dad looked at me…I looked at James…James looked at JJ… JJ looked at Jeni and you can only imagine the tears of joy that flowed. Praise you Jesus our God and King! I love the little moments in life that carry such impact… I am eternally different today. AMEN.
Wow. That is such an awesome experience.
I am a friend of Peters and he sent me the link to your blog. What a great encouragement to hear a story like this. It gives tesitimony that spiritual formation must occur in the home and not be outsourced for the Church alone to deal with. Great story, thanks for posting it.
john