This is a picture of my beautiful teammate Avery, and a sweet and sassy little girl named Talita.
An encounter with childlike faith:
The other day my team and I had decided to do a word fast. For those of you who have never heard of it a word fast is when you don’t speak aloud for however long you are fasting. The only person you can communicate with is the Lord. My team has word fasted a couple times before and I really enjoyed the time I was able to spend with the Lord. However, this time was different. I felt restless and like it was not the right time for me to do this, and I didn’t know why. Even though I felt this way I was still trying to be quiet because the rest of my team was word fasting so I didn’t have anyone to talk to anyway. So since I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself I went and took a shower. While in the shower I felt like I was going to explode with the words that I felt like we’re trapped inside of me so I began praying/talking with the Father about anything and everything. After my shower, as I was walking back to our room I came across Talita. She was meandering around the sandpit with a bored expression, that I know all too well, so I asked her if she would want to play a game. She agreed so we sat down on the ground rolling a soccer ball back and forth playing our very own edition of 20 questions. We started with simple things like “What’s your favorite color?”, “How old are you?” and so on. Then she after awhile she asked me if I was a Christian, I said yes then I asked her if she was one, she said she was. Then she asked me why I was a Christian. In my head I made this a complicated question. I went into my testimony of sorts; I explained that I knew about Jesus because I had grown up in a Christian home but I believed in him personally because there are a lot of times in my life when I felt Jesus come alongside me to help me. Then I asked her why she was a Christian. She started her answer similar to mine she told me she grew up going to church (she’s 9) because her parents and her grandma went to church but then she said she used to not believe that God/Jesus was real. She said that her mom used to say things like ‘say your prayers Talita’ and she would say ‘why would I do that, he’s not real?’ So I asked her what made her believe that he was real. She explained that when she is afraid and thinks that monsters are going to get her she prays and Jesus helps her know that the monsters aren’t real and gives her courage. She said ‘I pray and he makes me brave; so that I’m not scared of the monsters anymore.’ Her simplistic faith strengthened mine. I realized that when telling others what Jesus has done in my life or why I believe, I don’t need some complicated answer to convince them he’s real. All I need is the truth: I believe in Jesus because He is my helper and He loves me.
I am thankful for my restlessness that day. The Lord knew I needed a reminder that my faith should be simple like that of a child and if I would have been word fasting that day I never would have talked to Talita. I am thankful for sweet, sassy, little Talita and her faith in the Lord, and I am thankful that the Lord works all things together for our good.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog, I hope it has blessed you and been a reminder to have faith like a child.
May the Lord bless and keep you,
Molly McCrary
