Monday, December 22, 2008

The Faith of a Child

The other day at work I was talking to a single mother about some details regarding her housing situation and her education plan. She has recently come out of a very abusive situation and escaped with her two boys under the age of 6. She has been finding her way in the past several months and God has brought her to the organization that I work shortly after those defining moments.

Some time has gone by and we now have her matched with a mentoring group. She has found housing and is now living in an apartment with her boys. This is a completely new experience for her, even though she is in her 30's. (There was a previous post about her as well)

While we were talking about her apartment she said to me,

"My boys are so excited about the new apartment. They love having their own bedroom! Did I ever tell you about sleeping at the old house? [I nod no] They have never had their own room because my husband would make them sleep on air mattresses in our room. We lived in a house and had a room for them, but there was work that needed to be done to the room and my husband would not do it. He would always tell me that we didn't have enough money for it (he controlled the finances) and even when I would give him extra money that I got, we never seemed to have enough. Note that this was for about 6 years. I knew that it wasn't true, but couldn't do anything more about it.

"(the oldest son, who is 6) said to me the other night, 'Mom, I never told you this...

but when we slept in the old house I would hug my Bible every night when I went to sleep. I would pray to God that he would give me strength so Daddy couldn't hurt us anymore. I guess God answered the prayer, didn't He? Because now we get to see Daddy (in supervised visits) and he can't hurt us anymore.'"

She continued to tell me that as soon as she left with the boys he started to fix up that room. There could be many reasons for this, but I assure you that it was mostly done, if not completely, out of manipulation. How do I know this? Because this is the same man when asked if she could have a flashlight in the car, agreed. She went on later to discover that when he had put a flashlight in the car for her he not only took out the batteries but took out the bulb too.

I know this is a little much to be sharing in a post. There is much much more that goes into the story, but what I wanted to highlight was the faith of this little boy. Every night clinging to his Bible (which he still sleeps with now, not out of fear but out of habit) and praying to God in the only ways he knew how.

The faith of a child is always inspiring. Always.

1 comment:

Francesca Crane said...

What an amazing privilege it is to be a part of working with this family! Blessings to you Emily.