there are no cookies in heaven.

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you may have already seen a snippet of this exchange between Penelope and Laurelai, but I was so touched by this email Todd sent the girls that I just had to share it with you!  (All our kids have their own email addresses, the passwords to which they'll receive when they're older.  Todd uses these to send little notes, and Bible-thoughts, and memories that they'll be able to sift through later on.)

Here's what he wrote to the girls:

Saturday night after tucking everyone into bed, I heard a call to come back to the girls' room. When I entered, Penelope sheepishly said, "I have some exciting news." In fact, you said it so shyly, I couldn't make it out the first time and had to ask you to repeat the statement. After your repeated it, I replied with the natural follow up question, "What's your exciting news?" You responded by saying, "I think I may have just changed Laurelai in to a Christian." Suffice it to say, I wasn't expecting news of that nature. After digesting that statement for a moment, I asked you to explain to me how it happened. You walked me through how you were sharing with your little sister about sin, salvation, Heaven, Hell, repentance and forgiveness. You said that Laurelai said she wanted to believe in Jesus and you helped her through a little prayer to that effect. 

Then I heard Laurelai say, "Daddy, I have some sad news." I was expecting this to be related to Penelope's exciting news and take the form of something like, "The old Laurelai is dead," or some half of the Gospel truth, but instead, what you said was, "There are no cookies in Heaven!" Penelope hearing this piped in, "That's not what I said! I said, 'There is no SUFFERING in Heaven!'"

So who knows what Laurelai actually understood of what Penelope said, but a couple of encouraging details I gathered from the night were that Penelope is trying to make disciples and sharing the Gospel with her siblings, and Laurelai wanted to go to Heaven, EVEN if there were no cookies there. That is a pretty big commitment for a 4 year old. An eternity without cookies is a expensive price to pay in the imagination of a 4 year old, but you were ready to pay it in order to be a Christian.

I love you girls and I love seeing God working in your lives and through you both. May this be the first of many conversations and commitments to Jesus by all parties involved.