Summer 3rd Spiritual Birthday

 We celebrated Summer's 3rd spiritual birthday today!  Three years ago Summer made her own decision to trust in Jesus (read about it here) and so each year in October we celebrate!  She was so excited about her spiritual birthday today telling her teacher, a teacher at pickup, and her piano teacher, not only that it was her spiritual birthday, but also explaining what it means to her.  I love the light that she is everywhere she goes and I thank the Lord for working in her life.

In both the first celebration (2014) and second celebration (2015) , as in today, we looked back and remembered what God has done in Summer's life by reading the journal entry that recounted her decision and talking about what her decision meant (See here for her three year spiritual birthday interview).  

Today, just like last year, Summer got to be "servant" and plan and prepare dinner for the family (she was so excited!).  She picked out her own recipes by scrolling through Pinterest on my phone and saving recipes that looked good to her in her own folder, wrote a grocery list of items she would need, shopped for her list, and (with a little help from mom!) made dinner.

She chose to do breakfast for dinner, and chose Buttermilk Blueberry Breakfast Cake

As a side she chose frozen Greek yogurt bites

She also made chocolate peanut butter banana shakes.

I wasn't able to get a shot of her blowing out her candle this year, as the candle melted within the warm blueberry breakfast bake!  Oh well!  She enjoyed a different slice that didn't contain candle wax ;).

 
Just as in the previous years, Summer received a gift that would promote spiritual growth.  This year after researching several devotional books for kids, we chose a devotional book called the One Year Devotions for Kids.  Starting last May, in addition to her Bible reading with me in the morning before school each day, she does her own devotions at night before bed, all on her own.  We loved this Adventures in Odyssey book of 90 devotions that had her reading through the book of Matthew along with fictional stories to go with devotional, however when she finished that book, the second book she received was more focused on the fictional stories and less on her digging into the Word herself.  She is almost finished with her second devotional book and I knew I wanted to find something that had her daily looking up verses in her Bible alongside a fun little story.  The One Year Devotions for Kids book is exactly what I was looking for!  Each page has a format of Bible reading, story, application, 3-5 word summary of lesson, and memory verse. 

It is the perfect format for our 6 year old and she exclaimed how much she loved it after reading her first one tonight before bed.

We had a great evening celebrating what God has done in Summer's life!  I am so thankful for how God is working in her life and I pray that he would continue to use her to bring glory to His name and others into His kingdom.  Thank you, Lord!