The Lord is MY shepherd

I don't think I've shared much about my childhood on this blog. I'm sure that I will share more as I slowly step back into this blogging thing!

Here's a school picture of me from around the period of this story.

I grew up in London UK and attended a church of England primary school. When I was in year 2 (age 6-7), a Church of England bishop came to a school assembly as a "special guest". My parents would usually have stepped in and excused us from this kind of activity but this time they didn't. I'm not sure whether they knew about the bishops visit or not, I guess it doesn't really matter. Now as a mother, I begin to see that it was the higher hand of my Heavenly Father.

The bishop was wearing all his robes and the big hat. He had his shepherds crook in one hand and something in the other hand though I don't remember what!

I don't remember much of his visit but he said "The Lord is my shepherd and you are my sheep". I was troubled by this. This wasn't what I knew. I accepted Jesus as my saviour before my sister was born so I was no more than 2 when I came to know Jesus. My Mum had taught us to recite Psalm 23 before we even moved from Birmingham so I was under 4 years old when I learned Psalm 23- The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I stuck my hand up and when asked what I wanted I said "The Bible says "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.", I don't need a man in the middle". I don't remember his reaction, the reaction of anyone else there, or what he replied, but, I remember being so relieved that I had found the real deal and knew Jesus before this kind of thing came along so I didn't settle for this man in the middle.

I didn't think much more of this event throughout my life, other than the way that the Lord protected me as a little child and his love and care for the little children, until I had children of my own.

We don't know what lies ahead in our children's lives. We don't know what they may face. While it would be nice to keep them in a sheltered bubble to keep them from harm that's just not possible. So what could I do?

I could teach them the word of God then the Holy Spirit could bring it back to their remembrance at the right time. I started this with my little guy once he could talk. I was struck how much more easily he learned songs vs. reciting spoken words. So, I prayerfully set to work putting scriptures word for word to music to make it easy for him to learn them and we've gone from there using these songs for both my son and daughter. While I was in the UK last year, it was put on my heart to share these little songs with other parents so they could use them to help their children learn the scriptures. I'm afraid I let my pride, excuses, overcomplicating of everything, etc. get in the way and it took me almost a year and a lot more prompting from God before I finally realized I had to simply record them and God would do the rest. I started a kids YouTube channel for these videos and I've been dropping a video a week since that Tuesday. Today, I felt prompted to share the channel further so I expanded to Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. As a parent I like to know the story behind these kind of things before I introduce them to my children, so here it is- the story behind The Little Friends of Jesus scriptures to music.

I plan to just keep the videos on YouTube simple with the same structure as I started out with and with as few distractions from the Word of God as possible. Follow along on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok if you want more than just the video each week.

Please pray for me in this exercise of sharing these little songs. And pray that they may be used for God's glory, for the stirring up of hearts for God and for the building up of individuals for Him.

If there are scriptures that you would like me to prioritize working on please send me a message on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok or email jesuslovesthelittleoneslikeme@gmail.com so I can add them to the list.