Kids are Sanctifying

In church Sunday, our pastor gave an illustration from a recent "conversation" he had with his 2 year old daughter.  She recently learned how to say the word "help."  She is also independent.  For instance she can get out the plastic cereal bowl as well as the cereal.  But when she needs the cereal and milk poured, she looks up and says, "help."  

The other day our pastor was reading and his little girl came up with a Play-Do container and said, "help."  He opened it and told her to go back to the playroom to play with it.  A few minutes later she came back with the Play-Do in her hand and said, "help."  He figured she wanted help with making a few things so went into the room, stamped out a few things with the Play-Do and got ready to leave.  His daughter said "help" again and our pastor realized that not only was she saying "help" to get help, but also to communicate that she wanted him to stay and play.  He used this as an illustration to encourage us in our prayer lives.  He said that our Father in heaven understands that our prayer vocabulary may be limited but if we should just use the language we know and He will be able to discern just exactly what we need (whether it be help or the need to be in His presence).

That is one example of our kids sanctifying us.  I also had a recent episode with Amy that also taught me a lesson about our Father.  She recently dropped two of the Christmas ornaments and had broken them.  Both were Disney Princess dolls and both heads had broken off (not a pretty sight).  Nonetheless, when she dropped them and Marti saw them, Amy reassured her that "It's okay, Mommy. Daddy can fix them."  Happily I had some Crazy Glue and was able to indeed fix the ornaments much to Amy's delight.

I was amazed at her simple faith that despite the fact that something that was dear to her was broken she "knew" that her Daddy could fix it.  How I need that childlike faith when something in my life is broken!  I need to trust that my Father in heaven can "fix" the problem.

And so I'm thankful for my kids.  They teach me lots of lessons.  God uses them to sanctify me.  

Comments

[LeAnne]

A good word....thanks for the reminder!