Missy Jennings--
A few weeks ago, thanks to some advice from Amy Harrington, Tim and I decided to begin taking Trent (8) and Trace (6) to the regular service with us, in addition to Harvestland.
Just as a little background on Trent, we switched to a new school this week because he was bullied incessantly at his old school to the point where we have been seeing a counselor for anxiety and depression.
After I picked him up yesterday and was driving home, he told me that he had “walked across the room” at school. For a second I was confused and then it hit me that he was talking about the Hope series. He had been playing on the playground with his new friends, and he saw a girl on the other side of the playground who was alone. According to Trent, she’s not very nice to anyone at school. But he took a chance, broke away from his new friends, and went over and asked her whether she wanted to play. As he told me this story, I held my breath waiting to hear what the girl’s response was. Then he told me she had said, “I don’t need no one to play with.”
I was deflated, thinking what effect that must have had on Trent. As usual, I underestimated my son. When I asked him how that made him feel, his response was that it was okay and that he was just going to give it a day or so and try again because Jesus never gave up. Wow!
When we went to see his counselor yesterday, Trent told him all about the series and used all the right terms like “circle of comfort” and “zone of the unknown.” Granted, we have talked about the series at home, but I never realized how much of it he really got from your messages.
The counselor was floored, and he turned to me and told that Trent is an amazing kid, and the real deal.
So I guess I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for showing us what it takes to lead an authentic life. How to really be what God wants us to be. And thank you for making it real enough that even kids can get it.
By the way, at the end of our session, our counselor told us that it’s obvious that the switch in schools combined with this push for Trent to have confidence in reaching out to others has led him to conquer the valley he was in, and we need to have only one more followup visit in a month, and then we won’t need to see him again. Praise God!!
Missy Jennings
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