Overheard: (A Salvation Story)

"Nathan, are you happy tonight?"  Everything that came out of his mouth had been a song for the last hour.
"Yes!  I'm happy 'cause Jesus lives in my heart!"

A week ago tonight, Nathan prayed to ask Jesus into his heart.
We had gotten home late.  Jacob was already asleep (I thought), so I took him up from the car and put him in bed.  After Nathan had brushed his teeth and gotten his pjs on, Paul took him up.  He prayed with him, then as he was walking out of the room, he said Jacob sat up and said, "Me do bad things.  Mommy do bad things.  Everybody do bad things."  (We've talked with them about how "all have sinned." - Romans 3:23.)
Paul said he came back in and said something back to Jacob, who checked out of the conversation when Brutus (the cat) jumped up on his bed.  But then Nathan started talking and asking questions.
Paul said they went over all of it - how he (Nathan) had sinned - "done bad things" - and what those things were.  How you can't get into Heaven if you've done bad things.  How Jesus was perfect and died on the cross to pay for our sins so we can go to Heaven.  How we need to say we're sorry for the bad things we've done and ask Jesus to forgive us.  About how when Jesus lives inside of us, we act and want to act differently.
I wondered what was taking so long, since I couldn't hear anything and the light was off.  Then Paul came down and told me everything they'd talked about, and said the conversation ended with Nathan praying to ask Jesus to forgive him and come live in his heart.
I'm not sure my heart has ever felt such joy.  It is the most wonderful thing to realize that your child will spend eternity in heaven with you.  What makes it even better for me is the fact that I can see a difference.  He's four. He's a boy.  So there is still some "nature" that takes over sometimes, and he has a hard time controlling.  But his attitude has made some noticeable (at least to me) changes this last week.
I've always said that the measure of good parenting is not in if your child knows how to cook or do laundry when they're grown (although I do want mine to know those things, too!), but whether they believe and love  and honor Jesus as their Savior.
I'm happy to say our oldest does.  And he wants his little brother to have Jesus in his heart, too.