Truth is timeless, which is why I am sharing this blog. It was written several years ago while in the midst of international ministry, fulfilling my passion to bring the fullness of the Kingdom of God to our children.
At our worship team practice this week, the 21-year-old worship leader mentioned how blessed she is that even though she is so young, people of all ages choose to be on the team and follow her leadership. (At that specific rehearsal, the ages went from 15 to 53 years old.)
Sadly, I have been in too many situations where a blessing was missed because someone was being seen after the flesh and not after the spirit. This goes from receiving prayer for a healing, to being given an encouraging prophetic word, to even failing to 
mentor and disciple the younger generations for leadership. I have seen a church community struggling to have a vibrant outreach to families, where the entire leadership was in their 50’s and 60’s when they finally started to mentor the generation in its 40’s.
God is a generational God. He does not want just one generation to flow in anointing and leadership. This is all through scripture.
One obvious example is in 1 Samuel 3, with Samuel himself. As a young child, he ran to Eli three times one night, hearing his name being called. Once Eli realized what was happening, he took the time to instruct Samuel, telling him that it was God calling his name, and for Samuel to ask God what He wanted.
Samuel followed the instructions of Eli, and God downloaded a very heavy prophetic word to this young boy! All Samuel needed was some training and instruction.
With the release of the Holy Spirit (after Jesus died and went up to heaven) our children have a much greater ability to have God speak to them and work through them than Samuel did.
We are told to come to Him with childlike 
faith, but too often we don’t allow the children themselves to come to Him with their faith! How very sad, both for them and for us.
Going back to the young worship leader mentioned at the beginning, I was so blessed by what she shared with me when I brought up this subject to her.
God’s really been teaching me how to look beyond the age factor on all levels. He’s taught me a lot about how to lean on the anointing… I rely so heavily on the anointing ‘cause age tends to be a source of insecurity and criticism from others sometimes! I love that the anointing knows no age limit!!!”
Amen! So, let’s make sure we are encouraging the people around us, including our children, to lean on the anointing – the presence of the Holy Spirit in ourselves and others. And let’s be sure that we are looking beyond the age factor for the anointing, because “the anointing knows no age limit!”
Laura Diehl is an award-winning author, 
national speaker and singer. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests.
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GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss to a place of hope, light and purpose.
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I would spend hours and hours in my little prayer room under the basement stairs, mostly sleeping and crying. I would read my Bible, pray for a while, cry, and then sleep some more. That became my life because I had nothing to go back to, since the pastor would not allow me to have any kind of ministry or leadership role in the church, totally misunderstanding the grief I was working through.
and students did not have much of my attention beyond just grading their work. My leader was full of grace and did not pull me from my job, allowing me to work in a state of barely functioning. I honestly don’t believe I would even be alive today if I did not have that job and those students as a thin connection to my previous world beyond my isolated grief.
I can 100 percent guarantee you’re not going to feel like participating at first. You might even cry while you’re doing it (whatever “it” is). That’s okay. The important thing is to allow God to use your circumstance to touch others and let Him flow through you as soon as possible.
caring pray for you, to give you the strength and whatever else you need to follow through.
away from us in a way that makes us not fully realize it is part of life. As 
don’t even have five minutes from now. We each have the exact moment we are in. (Ray also is living with Parkinson’s and he refuses to just give in, missing out on what life still has to offer. He is living life to the fullest as much as possible as his disease progresses and does in a month more than most of us will do in a year.)
us, and even change for each of us in the different seasons of life. But whatever season you and I are in, even if it is a season of deep grief, I pray we will be able to do so in a way that gives life.
Graduations, school dances, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, birthday parties, weddings, baby showers…all of these and many more celebration events and milestones can be overshadowed with a reminder of who is not there and be bittersweet.
this road, where we get to make a choice. Am I going to keep that painful loss in the forefront of my life, leaning into the bitterness of my earthly loss, or am I going to find ways to lean into the sweetness of life that is still all around me?
to are not ones who are stuck and tell you that you will be also, but those who will light your path with hope that it is possible to get through this, such as the following:
This whole bittersweet thing is part of our lives now, whether we want it to be or not. I love how this parent describes it:
When we see a race, whether it be runners, cars or horses, everyone at least starts in their own lane. In a few races the competitors stay in their own lane, but on many race tracks they converge into one bundle of racers. Either way, they are all on the same track and are competing against each other to see who comes in first place.
We sometimes need to remind ourselves that is not how God set it up. Yes, we are all in a race, but we all have our own separate track to run on. We are not competing against anyone else. In Hebrews 12:1 Paul tells us, “Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.” (TLB) The NIV Bible says to “…run with perseverance the race marked out for us”.
else’s race. Let’s think about this. Why doesn’t a long-distance runner compete as a sprinter? Because he has the tools for endurance, not speed. Why doesn’t a shot-put thrower enter the hurdles race or the pole vault? Because he has the arm muscles to throw, not the legs to jump.
There is a wonderful consequence of running the race we are created for. It brings excitement, joy and contentment, so that we no longer see ourselves on the same track competing with each other or trying to run someone else’s race. We can speak with confidence the same words as Paul in Acts 20:24, “… that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus…”
