We can raise our children in the faith. We can teach them all we know. We can pray for them. We can teach them. But ultimately it is they that have to make the decision to make Jesus Lord over their lives.

Boy, I wish it were easier. I wish that doing all the things up above was enough to make them reach out and hang on to the one person that we know will *never leave us, nor forsake us*. It seems so obvious, so simple to me as an adult. I and they have *seen* the miracles. I couldn't imagine living any other way.

Just the other day I was talking to my oldest son and I could see he was struggling. He loves the Lord, but being out there in the big, wide world, where he is trying to keep his head above water, I see him finding it hard to put the Lord first. As I sit at home and listen to his stories, I want to just fix everything by my faith, but that just won't do it. His heart is for the Lord. He truly loves and trusts God, but where here at home, life was cushioned and he only had to love the Lord, now he is facing the world for real. And now I see life's challenges and busyness getting the best of him. I know he will regain his ground, but first God is going to have to become very personally real to him. And who knows how that will happen.

My second son also loves the Lord, but he is more worldly in his thinking. Of late, he seems to not have that child-like faith anymore. That is very sad, because if you could see how beautiful it is when a little child stops his searching for a treasured toy and turns to his 5 year old brother and says, "Briton. We have to pray. Then we'll find it."

As time goes by, and teens see our faith and see our results it will make an impact on them. But really, it is still *our* God. They have to choose to follow the faith on their own.

Yesterday, our near 17 year old had what would be considered a crisis in his life. For some strange reason our computer lost it's memory. Nothing was still there! Everything that we had put into the computer was gone. Old documents, photos, bookmarks, site favourites. Everything. I didn't even want to dig too hard into my memory to see what I could remember that I would be upset at losing. I restarted the computer, then I restored it to an old date. Nothing would work. We restarted it a couple times even.

Then that night, when Dane came home, he told me he couldn't find his Social Studies assignment. This was a one month assignment. He then began remembering other documents that he had saved but not sent into his online school. English assignments. School is not something he enjoys. He would rather just get his Grade 10 and be done with it. I tried to reason with him that perhaps we could find it, but honestly, I knew it was gone. He was sick, furious, and so upset, I finally had to send him outside to cool down.

After a while, I went looking for him and told him that if he could remember his answers that I would retype the assignment for him. I knew that he needed some encouragement. That didn't make him feel any better, but he came back inside and began typing up an assignment from this month. I told him that he should pray and he cynically said, For what? So the person who tried to get past the K-9 parental control comes back and fixes it? (he figured someone was trying to bypass the security. I know that didn't happen. It was simply his upset speaking.

Another thing is that Dane has been wanting to learn to snowboard. For Christmas we bought him a lesson, rental, and lift pass and when we went up two weeks ago we were told the lessons were full, as they give them to the school trips first. So he spent his ticket on a ski pass, instead of learning to snowboard. Last week, again, I tried to see if we could get lessons. I was told the same message: schools come first. The lady was very kind and said she would see what she could do. She would talk to the instructors and see if it was possible to bring another instructor in the day we wanted lessons. She has still not gotten back to me.

Last night, spontaneously, Ray decided to take the boys skiing. He took Dane, Cassidy, Austin, and Cooper. Before they left, I decided to call the ski hill and ask about buying some ex-rental skies. As I was waiting for the woman to transfer the call the thought that I should ask for lessons popped into my mind. (a Word?) I said a quick prayer, and when she came back, I asked if there was any chance we could get a snowboard lesson for two people: Ray decided he wanted to learn to snowboard! Too cool!

She said YES! Praise God!!! God is good.

I went and told Dane and he was pleased. I told him, Dane, I prayed. You should have prayed! Look how God met your desire.

No response.

The sad thing is that when they are children they *see* God, they believe in God with such a faith, and when God answers prayer they praise Him.

Later, after they were gone, I turned on the computer for Raine to do her schoolwork. I was a little baffled at the number of icons on the desk top. I was certain that there were many more than there had been yesterday. As I began looking through them I became hopeful. I was pretty certain I was seeing things that were not there yesterday.

Lo and behold, as I did a search I found Dane's assignments. Praise God!!! He is so faithful.

So now, these are miracles, and *I* can see them and know why I worship my Lord, but my son has to come, as an adult, to this same realization. I can't wait til he does, because he has no clue what he is missing!
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