What is a teenage boy to do with a mother who refuses to enter into a religious debate? Turn the Popsicle stick cross on the fridge upside down--that will get a rise out of her! But it didn't. Instead, its become one of my fondest memories.

I never said a word to Christopher about that cross. I knew he was the one who turned it upside down everyday and he knew I was the one who quietly turned it right side up. This went on for months. Meanwhile, storms were brewing and just around the corner was a temper that kept me on my knees for the remainder of his high-school years. Lots of prayers were offered up and lots of asking for forgiveness for all the times I lost my temper over him losing his.

Spiritual warfare was in order. I knew I couldn't talk to him about the Bible. I also knew/know that the word of God does not return void. What's a mother at her wits end to do?

I got small pieces of paper, wrote Scripture on them, and then hid them in his room; under his mattress, in his pillow, I wrote them on the back of the canvas's he had painted some very dark pictures on. I even wrote on the bottom of his shoes.

When he went to school, I worshipped God in his room. Once he was asleep, I quietly slid an open Bible into his bedroom. He was surrounded by the word of God and had no idea. I prayed and I prayed, but by the time he had graduated from high-school, our relationship was so strained that he would barely speak to me. My heart was broken. I feared my efforts were for naught.

Fear: False-Events-Appear-Real

Flash forward: At age twenty-one, Christopher once again adored his mother and yielded to his mysterious attraction to the word of God.I'll never forget the day he asked to borrow my NIV Bible. He still doesn't attend church, but he reads his Bible everyday and freely receives my humble answers to his tough questions, which are welcomed. And he gives.

Many Christians attend church every Sunday, but don't read their Bibles or part with a portion of their paychecks to help others. I'm so proud of my son. His brother, Matthew, is still finding his way. He is nineteen. I don't see him as often as I would like, but I believe in the power of prayer. It's easier now to place him in God's hands each day. I have since asked God's forgiveness for doubting the power of His word just because my son's "God search" didn't happen when I thought it should have.

So mamas, fight the good fight for your children! Prayerfully consider which Scripture would be the best medicine and don't give up. "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (that's endure, not enable). Love never fails...." (1 Corinthians 13:7-8 NKJV)

I was in my thirties before I returned to Christ. And now look what I'm doing! Trust me, no one in my family saw this coming when I was a teenager.

"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater,
So shall My word be that goes from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11 NKJV)