Thank you LORD for some affirmation!

This week I read my first chapter assigned in my Early Childhood Ministry class. God knew that it would be the exact encouragement I needed as I started this program. These are thoughts I have and statements that I have actually MADE to people....and now, I'm reading them in a BOOK for my Masters! Anytime I'd share my feelings on this subject with others...even fellow Christians...more times than not I was met with blank stares or people thought I was crazy! I've known I wasn't crazy, but God used this chapter to be a small piece of encouragement to let me know I'm doing what He's called me to do, and I'm not crazy! Here are a few facts that pull at my heart strings.. -A foundation is the most important part of a structure. It supports and undergirds everything within the structure. In the same way, foundational teaching supports and undergirds a child's life. Patterns developed early in life become the habits and basis for decision making in the future. -Young children are our future, but they also are a part of the church today. -The first two years of life are critical! For this age, the parents and teachers at church become representatives of who God is. The child begins to learn about a God whom He cannot see by his relationships with people he can see. A word of caution: The concrete of the first foundational concepts sets and dries quickly, and once dried, must be broken to be reshaped. The first and foremost thing young preschoolers learn about God is that He loves them. They understand this concept before their first word is spoken. They understand love not by mere words, but by actions. Yet, when words like God, Jesus, and Bible are used early and frequently with a young preschooler, and when they are associated with loving and engaging activities, the words are bound forever into the preschooler's ears and mind. -God works with preschoolers as well as adults on an individual basis. -Where there is no model, there will likely be no example to follow. Boys and girls need to see dads and moms and men and women involved in children's ministry ***All taken from "Teaching Preschoolers: First Steps Toward Faith"