Birth announcements

Announcing the birth of Lela Anne Blakeman and Isaac Daniel Blakeman into the Family of God today sometime around 2:30 pm. It was amidst many tears of joy and all their siblings were present! Yes, I am rejoicing!

Ok, so I'm not trying to fake anybody out...lol...but I thought it highly appropriate since we are awaiting the birth of one baby and get blessed with 2 of our children being born again.

It started as the most mundane day ever. Breakfast, chores, then I herd everyone to my room for some quick scripture reading while I trim nails for everyone. (Yeah, I know you totally wanted to know that. We have our mani/pedi's en masse around here. =) I had the oldest take turns reading and then we moved on to folding clothes when Isaac started asking me questions about dying...what happens, etc. (He's been doing that alot lately.) So it led to talking about salvation and what salvation means and how you get saved and why. We have never wanted to push any of our children into a false profession or anything. As much as we desire their salvation, we wanted it to come from their own recognition of their need. So I guess you could say I was expecting the conversation to be over when he asked if we could pray before we do any more laundry. It took me by surprise and I asked him " Do you mean you want to pray to be saved?" and he said "Yes, ma'am". So of course I said yes, and then Lela immediately spoke up and said "I want to be saved too", and that just completely did me in. I have really been burdened about her for some time. I knew she understood and she is always talking about salvation like she had already been saved and loves to read her Bible but she had never come and spoken to us about it if she had. So I have been praying specifically for her recently and for wisdom to know if or when to approach her about it. So, needless to say, I was just overwhelmed to have 2 such blessings heaped on me at one time. By this time, we were all crying, so we joined hands and Lela prayed first and then I prayed and then Isaac prayed. Even Aaron and Alyssa were crying their eyes out. Levi and Ky were the only 2 that weren't and they couldn't quite figure out what was going on. lol. Apparently Aaron and Alyssa have really been pushing Lela about salvation themselves recently and she would keep putting them off saying she wanted to wait until "Papa was home" or something like that. Well, she told me later that, today she didn't want to wait anymore, she figured she could call Papa later but she want to be saved NOW.

I let them call Ed right away and tell him the good news and he, of course, was as overjoyed as the rest of us and wanted to hear all the details. He told Lela that "his eyes were leaking too". =)

Did I mention that I have sooooo much to be thankful for! How can we find enough words to express what all God has done for us! My 4 oldest children are now all saved. How great is our GOD!!!!