More than eyes can see

On Sunday’s, my kids attend Sunday school and we attend church service. But my little one – Lily, doesn’t like to go Sunday school by herself or with Lydia but wants mom to go with her. Mom tells me that even at Sunday school, Lily doesn’t go and sit with the rest of the kids but by mom. So I attend church service and the rest Sunday school.

Last Sunday, I came out of the Church and I met two moms who take their children to Sunday school who said “Tell Lydia that her prayer was very sweet”. I had no clue what they are talking about as I was not there and promptly asked mom so she said the leader wanted one of the children to pray and no one raised their hands and Lydia raised it.

There are probably more than 50 children attend Sunday school and there are much older children also. There are children who’ve been attending the Sunday school for longer than we’ve been and to hear that no one raised their hand except Lydia surprised me. Mom told me all about the contents of her prayer it indeed is sweet.

I was more impressed with courageous attitude of Lydia than prayer itself. Here there are children in the age group ranging from 4 to 15 years, she is newer than many there and no one wanted to prayer except she. This is the second incident we are hearing (first one was choosing the Hindi class where she wanted to be different) to believe that may be there is more to what our eyes are seeing in Lydia.

This brings me to my thought: What instills courage in our children? Is it something that they are born with or do they acquire? Since I have no way to know about her biological family, I can only talk about the latter. At home, she receives constant positive reinforcement, encouragement to pursue bigger things in life and guidance to do the right things. We are more than willing to speak only the truth irrespective of the effect of it and simplify the complex explanations (such as why daddy cannot accompany her to the space)

When others (especially adults) talk positively about our kids, there’s nothing more joyful to the parents in the world than that. So when you see a kid next time doing something nice and sweet, just don’t tell the kid alone but his/ her parents when the kid is not around and you’ll do a world of good to the family’s confidence. Give it a try.