By the Light of a Solar Lamp

Although it was after dinner and the kids normally go straight to bed, I wasn't tired and neither were they, so I offered to teach them a game. 

I've never seen anybody have so much fun with Hot Potato in my entire life. We didn't even have a ball, so we used a rolled up skirt from somebody's dirty laundry, but that didn't stop anybody from having a good time. They laughed and cackled every time the music stopped, and we played over and over again for at least an hour. 

The other night, the Lord put something on my heart for this family that I am living with - a widow with her six young children. I want my presence in their family to be memorable and encouraging, and because of that, I was laying in bed at night thinking about how to initiate something that would bless and strengthen them spiritually. I thought some form of nightly family devo would be good, but I didn't really know how to start it. 

So after the heated game of hot potato (pun intended) calmed down, I asked the family if they wanted to pray together before bed. They all joyfully agreed, and so we all pulled up little wooden stools in a circle on the front porch. I asked one of the kids to choose a song, and then I asked the mother of the family to read a passage of scripture, the same one she read for our team devotional that morning. 

She took it from there! She read the passage, we discussed it together, and then she opened her heart and her mouth and began to exhort her children according to the Word of God. There, by the light of a solar lamp on the front porch, a mother told her children how much God loves them and how much they need to trust him in everything and talk to him about everything. It was the most beautiful thing I have seen in a long time. 

She led her children in prayer, and then before we went off to bed, she added. "We should do this every night!" My heart beamed. Because she said it, not me. 

I see God in her. She says her faith is weak and that she wants God to strengthen her faith, but I see in her a quiet strength that is just ready to burst forth when given the chance. This night, a crack broke open and her faith began to pour out, and as it strengthened her children, I believe it strengthened her, too.