Today I prayed and confessed about one of the ways I know God wants to teach me to become more like Jesus: in His love of children. Since my own daughters have grown to teens, I find myself thankfully spending less and less time with small children. I remember those days as labor-intensive, loud, and as a never-ending, sticky battle to clean up after them. I don’t like feeling this way! Isn’t that terrible? I’m ashamed to admit this to you. Can you believe I think these things and live with a thankful heart to be in a new stage of parenting?
I have been reading in the gospels just how much Jesus loves children. Why don’t I love children like He does? Could the Holy Spirit draw me again to children to love and care for them as He does? Jesus explicitly tells us this in Matthew 18:10: “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”
As I’m thinking about these things, I receive an email from the Children’s Ministry Director at our church to ask me if I would please be the Sunday School Storyteller for the children in March. Me? But I’m a college instructor. I’m a mom of teens. Everyone knows I’m impatient with children and have become a rusty, crusty, irritable person with those little ones!
But God moves. God teaches me. I find myself overwhelmed with love for those children as God’s spirit moves in my heart. Yes, I’ll be your Storyteller.