Butterflies, Jesus and Little Girls

Yesterday morning, I really enjoyed church. I was leading the children's service and I usually get the kids to do a few minutes of journaling (hearing God's voice - asking Him to speak to them and give them a picture etc) at the beginning of our service. Well, yesterday, we had three extra visitors than normal, two of whom were sisters and had never been to our church before. They come from a non-Christian background - their parents don't go to church and they live near Halifax which is a few hours away from here. So the reason they came was because they were visiting their cousin Morgan this weekend and she does come to our church and she (8 years old) brought them along with her.

I briefly explained to the new kids how to journal (even though I'm aware they don't have Jesus in their heart - but I'm trusting God that He'll still speak to them). After all the kids have a few minutes to journal, I asked if some of them wanted to share their pictures - which they did and that was really cool.

One of my Pastor's daughters, Anja, who's also eight (most of the kids in our church are eight year old girls) shared that she had this picture of God picking her up in His Hand and holding her in His Hand. She didn't know what it meant, but I thought that was a really cool picture and told the kids that I thought that picture was for all of us and that God was saying that He looks after us and keeps us safe and He holds us in His Hands. (But anyway I'm digressing - back to the story of the new kids...)

I asked one of the new girls who was 6 years old if God gave her a picture and she said that she got a picture of a butterfly but didn't know what it meant. (Tuning into flow and spontaneity myself) I told her that I thought that God is saying He wants to set her free. I told the kids that caterpillars don't always look nice and they are not free to fly, but when they change into a butterfly they get set free and they can fly and they're also more beautiful. I said when we don't have Jesus in our heart we are like the caterpillar, and we're not very free but when we ask Jesus to come and live in our heart, He changes us and we change into a new person and we become like the butterfly - we get set free and God makes us more beautiful.

I then asked if any of the kids wanted to ask Jesus to come and live in their heart and it was so awesome because both the 6 year old who had the picture and her 10 year old sister and another girl, Kennedy, not related to them who's 8 (and usually comes to our church but had never responded to altar calls before), all put their hand up and were keen to come forward to pray with me. So all three girls gave their lives to Jesus yesterday morning and for the rest of that morning kept smiling at me and were so full of joy. The new girls who were visiting even came and thanked me for them having so much fun and said that they really wanted to come again. I know their parents are not Church goers, but I am trusting God to look after those precious little girls. Please pray for them if you are reading this. Kalley is 6 and Kate is 10.