How many times has God used your children to illuminate truth for you? It’s often surprising and comes when we need it most, as in Melody’s story.

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“God! I really need a word from you!”

The wrenching groan from my spirit surprised even me.

Just four months earlier, we’d returned overseas after a year’s home assignment only to find palpable tension simmering in our beloved community, close friends writhing in painful conflicts that had erupted while we were gone.

On top of that, another dear friend ( a sister of my heart) had been tragically killed in a car accident. My grief — held “in solution” during the year away — now rose daily, like bile, to choke me — a bitter cup of loss now tangible, now fully tasted in this place where she had been, but was no more.

Then on top of these pains came news most unthinkable. The well-loved pastor of a home church—discipler of many, whose sermons had so recently pointed our own thirsty souls toward Christ — was mysteriously, horrifyingly missing. An agonizing week later, he was found. Dead. By his own hand.

Already soul-sapped, the weight of this sadness, this confusing wrongness, seemed too much to bear. Pray! I need to pray! But no words came except a single desperate soul cry to God for comfort, for explanation, for… something, some reason to go on!

“God! I really need some word from you!”

Broken hearts notwithstanding—suppers have to be made, homework supervised, children bathed (the normalcy of the familiar routines ringing an odd sort of counterpoint to the inner turmoil). Stories read, teeth brushed, children tucked in – then one last look into each room before retreating to my own thoughts.

“Mommy?” A familiar bedtime call from the four-year-old barely arrests my flight to solitude. Expecting a last-ditch request for water or a nightlight, I pause with sighing impatience just inside her room. “Yes?”

Her pensive look draws me nearer, as her vaguely troubled voice rises from shadowy bed.

“Mommy… Snow White doesn’t have Jesus in her story.”

Startled, I wait.

“Cinderella doesn’t have Jesus in her story, either.”

She’s silent, longer this time, thinking hard.

“But…” Bright eyes, lit by a further thought, suddenly sparkle triumphantly out at me.

“…But WE have Jesus in OUR story!”

Oh!

In that heart-stopping, oh-so-thin moment, I draw in stunned breath, can’t let it out. (If I stand frozen, will I actually see Him whispering in her precious ear?!)

In this gentlest of voices, these simplest of words, God is answering me back. Speaking. To me.

“God! I really need some word from you!”

“My child. You have Jesus in your story.”