“Maybe Sarah-Faith can be our first.”
“Seriously? No.”
I refused to reply to the school principal’s message.
Just a day before that, I’d dropped her a note- “Hope this’ll encourage your team of teachers- Yesterday morning, SF woke up saying she had a dream of all of her teachers and friends at our home praising God. They all went into her room and worshipped- it’s such a prophetic picture of the teachers entering the children’s lives in an intimate and powerful way. Thank you for all you all do!”
But I didn’t expect the principal to reply with, “I pray for that day… In fact I was toying with the idea of how to get the children to come up and lead worship for morning assembly for their class/school- maybe SF can be our first.”
That’s when I totally freaked out.
Of course not. She’s too young. She’ll be petrified. She’ll say no. Or if she says yes, she’ll be traumatized by the experience.
So I ignored the principal’s message.
More than a week later, a mother instinct greater than my fear told me to ask SF. Without missing a beat, she quipped, “Yes.”
“You’ll be standing in front of all your friends. It might be scary.”
“I wanna try.”
The principal kindly allowed Cliff, myself and little Esther-Praise to come support SF at her debut.
As she led her class not only in song, but in the actions she’d made up at home with me, my heart swelled. All this while, I’d deterred her when it was simply her heart’s desire to lead.
It was a dear mentor who shared with me, “We might think our duty is to protect our children when in fact, our duty is simply to journey with them through life’s challenges.“
Tears welled up.
I’m learning- that for my children to live to the full measure of God’s plans for their lives, that I , at times, need to hold myself back.
That evening, as SF lay in bed next to me, she whispered, “I had so much fun today, Mama. I hope I can do this again.”
You go, girl.