does God speak to children?

Since we started home schooling, we have always started our home school day with a time of prayer, worship and bible reading.

This has always been such a special time for all of us, and no two days have been the same in the more than four years that we've been doing it.

I have found that God proves his lavish creativity over and over again within our prayer times, because it becomes a time of the unexpected, the fresh, the profound, the wonderfully surprising.

Last week, I felt we needed to introduce a new element to our prayer times, by asking the boys to spend time praying on their own before we prayed together, and then bring whatever they felt God had said to them to our 'together' prayer time. I was a little nervous, because I didn't want to put pressure on them which they perhaps weren't ready or mature enough to cope with. But they were both very excited, and eagerly went and found their special spots where they could pray in solitude.

Braeden brought these two stones when we got back together, and said he had felt God say to him that he wanted us to be like the stone on the left, rather than the stone on the right. He asked me to feel each stone in turn.

He said that he felt God had said to him that we should ask Him to make us smooth so that when we are with other people, they want to be with us, just like he wanted to hold that smooth stone because it felt so nice in his hands.

So we spoke about the ways that we can become 'smooth' and then we spoke about what makes us 'rough'.

Then we prayed that God would mould our characters so that we become more like Him, and that we learn more and more how to truly love one another.

God's kindness touches my heart so deeply.