I have been teaching a children’s class along with our Pastor’s wife and my long-time friend Pam on Wednesday nights for the last few months. The Wednesday night before last, we started teaching the children the story of Jacob and Esau, but did not talk about the dream Jacob had or the rest of the story until last night.
A few of days ago the mother of one of the children in our class (Gwen) shared with us that Gwen had a rough day because during her visitation with her father, he had said some very unkind things to her. Gwen is a very sweet girl, who loves the Lord, and that evening, the Lord gave her a dream where she saw a staircase going from heaven to earth and she saw the Lord at the top with an angel on either side. She said the Lord came down the staircase and told her that He loved her and gave her a kiss.
She had no way of knowing that we would be teaching on the dream Jacob had about the ladder reaching from heaven to earth, with angels ascending and descending on it and the Lord standing at the top speaking to Jacob. I thought how wonderful our Heavenly Father is that on the day that she felt rejected by her earthly Father, He gave her a dream where He gives her a kiss and tells her that He loves her and then we teach about that on Wednesday night. I also told the children about the scripture that says “Although my father and mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up (adopt me as His child)”, Psalm 27:10, The Amplified Bible. I explained to them that when you accept Jesus into your heart, you are adopted by the Lord into the family of God and He is the perfect Father.
Unfortunately, Gwen’s story is the same for many others or worse. Gwen has a good mother who brings her to church, has her enrolled in Christian school and lives a good Christian life, but many of the children who attend the school at our church and many schools across the nation have parents who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. Some are in prison and consequently, the children are being raised by their grandparents. For those being raised by parents with problems of addiction, there is often a lot of anger and emotional abuse or neglect or worse, because the parents are so broken themselves, they don’t have anything good to give to the children. That is why it is so important that we teach them about the love of God, so they can receive Him while they are young and be spared from repeating the painful lives of their parents or those around them.
The problem with addiction and motherless and fatherless children seems to be an epidemic in our society, but I have been encouraged by the some of the scriptures I have been reading and prophetic words I have been hearing.
Last year, I felt impressed to read Matthew 17:10-12, which says: 10 And His disciples asked Him, saying, Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? 11 Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. 12 “But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished…”, (NKJV). In verse 11, Jesus is speaking in the future tense, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things (this is a reference to Malachi 4:5-6). In Verse 12, He explains that John the Baptist was a type of Elijah that preceded and prepared the way for His first coming, but again, verse 11 points to another future fulfillment. Malachi 4:5-6 states: 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord 6 And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse., (NKJV). So Malachi is saying that before the Day of the Lord judgment begins to be poured out that there will be a move of the Spirit to bring restoration in the relationships between parents and their children, but I believe it is also pointing to the Lord raising up spiritual mothers and fathers in the body of Christ to help parent these children. I have recently been hearing several prophetic words saying that this is beginning to happen or about to happen, so I am encouraged and will continue to pray for this.
The harvest field is plenty, but the laborers are few. I pray for the Lord to raise up laborers in this harvest field, so that Gwen’s story and the story of many others will have a happy ending. It will be a story of our Heavenly Father showing the children how much He loves them and raising up spiritual parents for them in the body of Christ and also of their parents getting saved, delivered from drugs and alcohol and receiving emotional and mental healing so they can become good parents. God bless you all.
Kelly Rowe
A Deeper Walk 