A Spiritual Encounter

As a Children's leader and teacher, I have been praying for my students to draw closer to God.  Sometimes, you make the lessons and pray for the kids and encourage them and do what you can to reach them, only to wind up feeling that your aren't reaching them for Christ.

For the last few weeks my oldest daughter and I have been talking about how we really want these kids to learn about worship and praising God.  Our church is pretty modern in the praise and worship music.  The children always like the band and the music.  The fast songs are fun to jump and clap to.

There seemed to be the problem.  The children thought it was fun, but they weren't focusing on God.  As soon as a slower song would begin to play the kids would stand there or sit down.  They were bored.  My daughter and I talked at length about how we want them to really get a chance to learn about worship.

On Wednesday evenings I teach Mpact Girls.  The girls are all between the ages of 8 and 11.  I was running late last night getting my class underway.  I had a lesson ready, but wanted to take my Mpact girls into worship with the youth.  I decided to quickly talk with the girls about how they should focus on Jesus during the worship, not worrying about their neighbors or friends.  I told them that God loves when we worship Him.  Before I could really get into a discussion with the girls, the youth band began to play.

I got side-tracked praying for a young teen that was re-committing her life to Christ a year after she had walked away.  I was at the alter praying for this girl for a few minutes when I looked up.  Tears formed in my eyes as I saw each of my girls praying, singing, and worshiping God freely for the very first time.  Some were crying.  All ended up at the alter at one point.  We never got to our lesson.  We were in the sanctuary nearly the entire time.  Teens came up and began to pray with these young girls.  My heart was so touched.

The fact that Laura, my nine year old, was one of the girls just blew me away.  My oldest daughters were both on stage singing.  They both noticed at about the same time that their little sister was worshiping and praying.  At that point they both fell apart themselves.  Both of them ended up praying with her.  For a mom to see her daughters praying together, I could only cry and thank God.  I feel like I have waited years for that moment without even knowing it was something I was longing for.

I have a lot of prayers for my Mpact girls, for all the children in my Kid's church, and for my daughters.  Having God touch their hearts and lives is one of my top prayers.