This weekend at the Church of Christ Ladies’ Lectureship – Retreat in San Antonio Texas, I had the privilege of facilitating a session with elementary aged girls. In being transparent, they make me nervous. It’s been a while since I’ve been 8, 9, or 10 years old. I typically facilitate workshops for teen or college-aged girls. The bible study classes I lead are taught to women my age or older. So as I stood before these “little girls”, one twirling her baby dolls yarn hair between her fingers, I felt a knot in my stomach. I found myself thinking, will they be able to relate to me? Will they understand? Will they even be able to sit still long enough for us to get through the lesson? I said a prayer to quiet my thoughts and the next hour changed my life.
They were deep. Deeper than the sand in the sandboxes they play in, deeper than their toy chest back at home filled with stuffed animals and dolls. As we talked about faith and their relationship with God they had questions. If God knows everything, then why do we need to pray, after all, shouldn’t God just know everything already? They used phrases like, God is real and let me show you an example of how he worked something out for me. When they don’t understand something you say, they google it. One little girl handed me her phone and said, “it shows that there are two definitions of faith, which one is the right one?”
They are both mature “little women” and immature “little girls” all in the same sentence. They can process what’s a real friendship versus what’s a “fake” friendship and advise each other on the pros and cons of Christian friendships vs. friends from school. They like boys, want or have “boyfriends”, and believe it or not have relationship drama and questions, while not really understanding the difference between a girl-friend and a girlfriend. In their minds, they’ve done really really bad things that they can’t share with anyone, and while they may not understand why they need to pray, they want to get baptized because they want to be forgiven. I mentioned the word grace and was surprised as one little girl opened up her purse and politely handed me a grace card. I was floored. If you know Dr. Reba White, you’re familiar with her grace cards and the significance behind them.
I realized that these “little girls actually operate more like “little women” and that our typical approach of giving them a coloring sheet with Noah’s ark on it, or Jonah and the whale is great. They still need to learn about the greatest lessons in life on disobedience, fear, faith, and strength learned through children’s bible stories, but if we are going to capture their minds in order to help them learn how to build their very own relationships with God, we’re going to have to be willing to sit at their feet and learn how to teach them from them.
It’s not easy, in fact, it’s quite cumbersome, but the payoff is worth it. We have to change our thought process on viewing them as our future. They’re not our future they are our NOW, and we’re doing them a disservice if we’re not equipping them NOW for their future.
I’m looking forward to working more with our girls if you’re reading this and live in the Texas area and you’re willing to collaborate on how we can develop these “little girls “ into Christian women let’s connect. They need us.
Gigi Powers
Pretty Is A Lifestyle 