Melissa Brooks

I am ever so grateful to have the privilege of spending some extra time off with my girls this week.  They are growing so very fast before my eyes and I’ve been allowed time to make more memories.  They are growing into little ladies and into their own. My Lexi is definitely at the “tween” age as they call it.  She’s very into her hair and fashion these days.  My Ellie is prissy girl in a dress but will beat up a boy at the drop of a hat.  This girl would wear a dress or skirt every day of her life if allowed.  They are really a joy to me.  They are extremely funny.  They make me laugh and smile all the time.   Ellie is now in the stage that she understands that she is funny and witty.  She no longer gets upset or embarrassed thinking that you are laughing at her.  She cracks me up.  She is very magnetic and hilarious. I’ve been catching Lexi dancing and singing around the house with her mp3 player.  She has definitely grown up.  See, Alexia was my extremely shy child.  Has panic attacks at the thought of strangers and the unknown; always glued to my side.  (I tell people Lexi {Shy} is me as a child and Ellie {Not so much} is me grown up.)   Well my “big” girl just recently went off to camp in Georgia for 4 DAYS!!!  She had an awesome time, says she wishes she could have stayed longer and wants to go back next year!!  (WHAT??) Talk about breaking out of the box for her.  I’m so stinkin’ proud of her I cannot stand it.  I smiled for days every time I thought of her being brave; away from me and enjoying herself.  WAY TO GO!!! What a summer this is turning out to be!!  We have been soaking up the sun, the pool water and each other and enjoying every minute of it!!  I pray that you are finding the time to do the same with your family.  

One of my favorite things to do as a mom is to spend “jammie” time with my girls.  Every Saturday morning we “sleep in” (which around here anything past 6am is sleeping in).  Then we usually watch cartoons or a movie and we hang out in our jammies on the couch with comfy blankets waiting for cinnamon rolls to get out of the oven.  Saturday just isn’t Saturday without cinnamon rolls.   It’s so nice to sit and listen to my girls laugh and to have them cuddle with me on our couch.  I enjoy the 4-5 hours we spend in our jammies before we have to get ready for a 5 service weekend at church.   This is just one our little “traditions” together that I pray one day will trickle into their houses when they have a family of their own.   Gotta go oven is beeping… Next time more “traditions with Mom.” 

That’s an excellent question.  My reply to that is WHY NOT?  Why would you not want to be a part of introducing children of all ages to Jesus!! There is nothing greater!!  We get to partner with parents to lead children to their Forever Friend Jesus!!  We get to show kids God’s love!!   God has blessed me with an awesome team of people to work beside that have such an awesome heart for kids.  It is a joy and a privilege to walk with these people.  They take pride in knowing that when they volunteer that God is using them to plant a seed in the life of a child and then get to watch it grow.  I’m truly thankful for those surrounding me that have such a servants heart and have joy overflowing!! I could never EVER do what we do in KIDZPLAYCE without one on them.    

Wow!!  We’ve been in Dallas for C3 Creative Church Conference.  The Church is amazing.  Walking into their children’s area was unbelievable.  The ridiculous thing is I can see KIDZPLAYCE and The Gathering at this level in the very near future.  This conference has been awesome.  We have met the many “celebrities” of our ELEVATE curriculum.  The people of Fellowship were very inviting and very available to us. 

It’s so awesome to be surrounded by like minded people from many different churches.  Everywhere you look and listen teams were getting together discussing their desire to strive to the next level and how they could do things better and different.  I love when we have the opportunity to go to these conferences.  It is a time of eye opening, refreshment and really rejuvination.  It’s always a time of refueling and retuning you to come back to what’s the important…telling all children that Jesus wants to be your Forever Friend and He is so AWESOME!!!! 

I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us tomorrow!!

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 6 “…, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, (Jeremiah 18: 1-7)  

There is so much in these few little verses.  We are in the hands of The Potter.  We come to him marred, blemished, flawed, stained and spoiled.  He draws us to Him with this knowledge.  He chooses us anyway.  He chooses us because He knows the plans He has for us, he knows the power in His hands.  He takes us in His hands, His beautiful hands.  Notice not only does He take us into His hands, He takes what we are, what we’ve become, we are the it in the latter part of verse 4.  He made it again another.  Only He can remake us.  We have to let Him.  We have to trust Him.  He makes us again as it seems good to Him.    It’s not easy to be on The Potter’s Wheel.  It’s not easy to be molded; to be made again as it seems good to The Potter to make.  It’s not supposed to be easy but it is worth it.  Even now as I’m continually being molded and shaped into whom He wants me to be there are days I feel as though I cannot take one more step, endure one more thing but as He says, His grace is enough. 

 I am thankful for the Moses moments when He shows His glory.  You can’t always see His glory until He’s already passed by you and you get to look at what He has done.  I believe He gives us these glimpses in between the storms, the trials and the pruning to encourage us to endure.  To enable us to press through the next spin on the wheel knowing that we have been made into more of the shape that He wants us to be.    I’m thankful and humbled that He chooses to remake me. 

“Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.  Give thanks to Him and praise His name.” Psalm 100:4 NLT

This time of Thanksgiving is a time to thank God for all that He has done.  The original thanksgiving, even before the pilgrims, was for  celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops.   Every year since the birth of our church we have had the most precious time of the year around Thanksgiving. 

Chest of Joash is my favorite time of the year.  It’s the sweetest and most precious time that we have at our church.  It is such an awesome experience to share with all the families in our church.  To watch families come together with their sacrifice and prayers, some are so joyous and some are so broken.  It is a true privilege to be a part of something so life changing. 

Chest of Joash is truly life changing.  I have seen year after year the life change.  I always tell “My Girls” (my big girls), there is power in the chest.  God’s power.  I have been privileged to have the first hand account of many prayers.  Many of them my own.  As I have shared, my very first Chest of Joash I scrimped and saved what money I could believing that God would hear and answer my prayer.  I prayed for the salvation of my husband, it was  years later but God answered my prayer.  My husband has been serving faithfully and is constantly trying to pursue after what God would have him to do.  This is something many probably would never have dreamed would have happened. 

The first year that we came to the chest together, my husband said that God told him that we needed to give our car.  He had only been saved 3.5 months and he’s wanting to give our car!!  God is so good!!  We gave that car and prayed for a house that only God could get us.  As I’ve said before I pray for ridiculous favor and God is a God of ridiculous favor!!  He took me on such a journey through faith and trusting during the next year but I was steadfast like the persistent widow with the judge (Luke 18), and Jacob, I wasn’t going to let go until He blessed me.  In the end God blessed us with a house that has his fingerprints all over it!!

God just continues to always amaze me.  I love it!! Over the years as I said before I have been able to have the privilege to pray with friends and share in that special moment as they give their all and seek God’s face in their situation. 

This year I had the ultimate privilege!!  God was whispering to me during many of our services showing me another answered prayer.  Last year, one of “my girls” was praying for her husband and Satan almost kept her home last year because she didn’t want to go to the Chest alone.  Her husband had stopped coming to church he was running and trying to run fast.  That morning last year she was so upset and distraught, he said he wasn’t coming, she couldn’t get her boys up out of bed and she was going to stay home.  She pressed through and came.  She sat there in the service just weeping.  I, along with another of “my girls”, lifted her out of her chair and walked her to the chest.  She couldn’t say a word she was weeping so bad, her prayers were in her tears.  I was allowed to be her voice that day she dropped her marriage in the chest. 

This year her marriage is one of the many answered prayers!!  GOD is so awesome! So powerful, and ever so HOLY!!  Praise His name and enter His gates with thanksgiving!! 

I can’t wait to see the prayers that will be answered this weekend at the chest!!

In reading my bible I came to Zechariah 4:10.  It reads “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin…”.  In my relationship with the Lord He speaks to me in the little things, sometimes a whisper, that I love so very much.  He knows how much it touches me when He does or shows the littlest things for me that mean a lot.

  My daily prayer is that God would show me ridiculous favor.  For those of you who don’t know me well, ridiculous favor is just the blessings that are so ridiculous they can only be from God.  Those that have God’s thumbprint right on it.  Just His little “presents” to me that mean so very much.  Those things that He choses me to be a part. 

Reading that verse makes me think of our church.  I’m one of the few that have been with the church since the very early beginnings.  I remember the days of small beginnings, when we would have maybe 6 babies & 10 preschoolers.  We had one service at 10:30am on Sundays.  I’ve seen it go to maybe 10 babies & 15 preschoolers to a new building (theatre).  Then our move to our current building we had a small little preschool room way in the back where KIDZPLAYCE entrance is now.  There were only a handful of children’s workers.  Before we knew it we were in 2 Sunday services, had a lot more kids, it couldn’t have been more than 40-50 in all departments (Nursery, Preschool & Elementary). 

Now look where God has brought us… We are in 4 services it’s not unlikely to have 40 kids in one area at one service at a time.  We average about 260 kids on a weekend!!  We have over 130 volunteers and that just barely covers what we need now.   God has started us small and only He knows what He has in store for us.  I have prayed for years for our Children’s ministry and in many “small” ways He has made such a  Huge impact.  One little one at a time.  Some days it seems overwhelming and I just pray, “Lord you know what we need to take this where you want it to go and I’m trusting you to follow through as only you can”… in the small things. 

There are many days that things seem so huge to us and we become overwhelmed.  Those are the times we desire to  go back to a place that while we were in it, we so desired to be out.

  I get so excited and tremble a little bit, every year with the thought, “what are you up to now God?” 

 Ultimately, everything is a small thing to God and “He rejoices to see it begin…” 

Many people ask me why do I love preschoolers so much.  My reply is how can you not?  They are so cute and so very teachable. 

I am constantly humbled by the fact that God has chosen to use me to tell these little ones all about Jesus!!!!  I get to see their little faces and eyes light up when I tell them “Jesus wants to be your FOREVER FRIEND!!!  He promises to never EVER leave you.  He’ll never EVER let you go!!” 

I also get to share in those special moments when they come in all excited looking for me and say “Miss Melissa guess what?  I asked Jesus to be my forever friend!!…”  Who wouldn’t want to be a partner with parents in leading these little ones to Christ?   
Jesus is the best, OH YES!!