The Prayer of a Child

Yesterday I was hawking my wares  selling candles at a women's conference,  At the next table was a man.  A man at a women's conference.  I'm guessing he felt right at home with candles on one side and jewelry on the other.  :-)  Anyway, he was representing a local ministry that after hearing about I was quite impressed with. It sounds like it works smart and efficiently.  It may even be something our church would be interested in getting involved with....but that is yet to be seen.

Anyway, about mid morning, an acquaintance came over and she was a volunteer for the conference. She mentioned what a waste it was to have chocolate covered pretzels weighing down balloons when we could be eating some.  I suggested that if my kids were there we might have the discussion about how many pretzels were actually needed in that bag to hold down the balloon.  Pretty soon the gentleman at the next table was opening that bag and all three of us took a pretzel.  We were amused.

Imagine my horror come early afternoon as another volunteer came over and discovered the bag was open and went to get help because those were doorprizes!!!  They taped it all back together and put it in a pretty bag.  I apologized profusely and was quite put in my place.  It is all so funny until the church ladies aren't happy.  lol

Well, this led to a mini friendship with the man at the next table.  I mean, partners in crime?  You gotta stick together.  And so we began chatting.  It turns out that part of their ministry involves helping families in Guatemala start small businesses to make some additional income.  Our Danish friend, Johnny, has a huge interest in doing this one day so I got some information for him.  Then we continued discussing other aspects of the Servant Ministry and I learned that they do home repair projects for local families in need.  Local churches are the workers for these projects and then if that family or elderly person does not have a church they are loved on and ministered to by a local church in hopes that they will become involved.

This led to a discussion of our church.  How small it is.  How busy our members are in serving their families, neighbors and each other.  But, perhaps one day this Summer there might be interest in a Father/Son day where they meet the needs of a local family that we have yet to meet.

In the process of our discussion I described our unique way of worship as a multi-generational church.  How we don't separate out for various classes or activities and there is no children's church.  I expressed my conviction that this is not "the only right way" to do church, however, it is what our families are comfortable with.  He rightly assumed that we are primarily made up of homeschooling families.  I admitted that we think "differently".  It was a good conversation.

Here is the part that prompted this post.  I told him about one young one, named Asher (4 or 5 years old) who last week prayed out loud in our corporate prayer time.  I say he prayed "out loud" but it was barely above a whisper.  Just enough that we could just make out his words as he prayed for a man in our church, who usually sits right in front of him, who was recovering from hip replacement surgery.
It was not a three word prayer.  His thoughts were well put together and he was so sincere.  I'll tell you what!  That blessed my heart so much!  To hear one of our youngest members caring so much for an adult in need.  He didn't seem to be fearful.  He just stated the need to His Heavenly Father.

 Lord, may we be just like Asher and show loving care and concern for those around us.  May we not fear man but cry out to You with all that is in us in confidence that You want to hear from us.    May we also have childlike faith.

Amen!