JOY

I have no greater joy than to hear
that my children are walking in the truth.
3 John 1:4  NIV

 
           
     If you have ever experienced this joy, there really is nothing that  penetrates deeper into a mother’s heart.   Witnessing our children seek the Lord out of their own personal desire  and hunger to find Him blesses a mother’s heart beyond all words.  It thrills us on the inside and touches the most central part of our  hearts that is reserved for unspeakable joy. It’s Mary as she accepted that her twelve-year old son Jesus, missing for  three days, had been in “his Father’s house.”  Luke records, “His mother treasured all  these things in her heart”  (2:51).
           
     Have you read of Hannah who prayed earnestly for a child and settled in her heart that she would “give him to the Lord all the days of his life” (1 Sam.  1:11).  After weaning her son Samuel, she took him to Eli, the temple priest in Jerusalem and said,
“’…So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.’And he [Samuel] worshiped the LORD there” (1 Sam. 1:28).  Hannah later prayed to the Lord after having left her young boy Samuel behind to do the Lord’s work: “My
heart exults in the LORD; My horn is exalted in the LORD…” (1 Sam.  2:1).
           
     When I see my young adult children lift their hands in praise to the Lord  or worship Him by their singing, my heart takes flight. 
When I hear Christian music flooding their rooms or see an opened  devotional by their bed, my spirit leaps. You see, part of that deepest joy flows from a mother’s heart and head because she believes her children are on to something.  It’s a joy that rests
in the sweetness of knowing they have found purpose and meaning and Truth.  It’s a joy of assurance that her  children are equipped to handle the storms, battles, and conflicts they surely  will face while on this earth.
           
     Then there are those who solemnly say, “I don’t know this joy on behalf of my children.”  You must pray earnestly and with immeasurable passion and yearning on your child’s behalf.  The more prayer, the  greater joy.  Trust Him to answer.