What a powerful testimony shared by the parent of an 8-year-old at Zion!
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Sending one’s children to Christian school requires a large financial commitment, one which we were unsure from the beginning how we would maintain over the years. This past year, it became apparent that this would be even more difficult, if not impossible. Part of me wanted to force the issue - register them anyway and wait and trust that God would somehow provide the finances after classes started. However, around the time that re-registering was necessary, my husband expressed a desire for one of the children to attend late admission French Immersion. God had been provoking me with the story of Moses and how he had “turned to the side” from what he was doing and took the time to investigate the burning bush, and so I chose to take the time to investigate this option, even though I felt it was unattainable due to wait lists and distance. To my surprise, there were two spots left in a class just ten blocks just down the road from our home. And, to my surprise, admission of one student in a family meant acceptance of all of our children, including the younger ones. So, I took the leap and registered them all.
I left the door open for the Christian school, however, and left them enrolled at both schools. A few weeks later, just two days before a class meet-and-greet, our French Immersion student expressed their disappointment at not being able to foster a friendship with an individual they had met through a mutual friend. Imagine our surprise when that same person walked through the same door to the class meet-and-greet at the same time. This seemed to be confirmation that this is the direction where we should be headed. A short while later we met our youngest child’s teacher, who, to our surprise, turned out to be a parent from the Christian school we had been attending up to this point. More confirmation that we were headed in the right direction, no matter how difficult it might seem, and so I advised the Christian school that we would be withdrawing our application. I did not want to be a person of two minds, demonstrating that I doubted God’s faithfulness and ability to complete the good work He had started.
Last evening, just days before school starts, I happened to speak to our 8-year old about the promises of God, comparing us to the two faithful spies who believed the promises of God and trusted in Him to bring about the word He had promised, and expressing how we did not want to be like the 10 unfaithful spies who were fearful and did not believe in His ability to achieve what He had purposed to do. At that point I asked them if this child knew of any promises God had made to our family that had not yet come to fulfillment. To my surprise, they responded affirmatively that they did. God had told this 8-year old that they would be attending a new school, but would still be able to talk to their friends from the old school. You can imagine my shock. When I asked them when God had told them this, they responded that it had been several months previous when they had been home sick one day - before we had even started the process of registering the children in the new school.
One would think that if God were to audibly speak to a young child that they would have been bursting to tell someone about it, but yet they had not. Why not? I asked myself. This is because God speaks to them regularly - they think of this as normal. Visiting heaven and seeing God in a dream had previously only merited casual mention at the time because I had wakened them from this dream.
I am again struck with the weighty and amazing privilege it is to guide the younger generation. After all, God himself values them enough to release words to them and gives to them the Holy Spirit, not diminished at all in size to what adults receive. He has promised that in the final times, He will pour out His Spirit on all flesh.