Teaching Kids to Sparkle

I recently saw the movie "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium". In the movie Natalie Portman's character, Molly, asks the question: "Do you think I sparkle?". She defines sparkle as "a reflection of something greater than yourself". In the movie the something greater that Molly is referring to is a faith in the magic of the toys, but as I watched that movie I thought to myself "wow" that is what it is all about. To sparkle – a reflection of something greater than yourself - we want to teach the children to sparkle.


At the end of the movie Molly sparkles and it was evident that it didn't just happen by coincidence. Mr. Magorium knew that he was getting ready to more or less die and he was going to leave the store to Molly. There are two main things that he did to make sure she was ready to sparkle


1) He had invested in her life since she was a small child. He had taught her to have faith in the magic of the toys. This didn't happen overnight – he had spent years teaching her all about the ins and outs of the magical toy store.
2) Mr. Magorium repeatedly told Molly that he believed in her and knew she could run the toy store.


In the Bible we have several accounts of the lives of men and women that are a reflection of something greater than themselves. For instance: the life of Moses.
Moses was created for a purpose – God had a big plan for his life. As we read about Moses' life one thing that sticks out at me is how God made it possible for Moses' mother to invest in his life as a small child. There were so many people that could have been Moses' nurse, but God wanted it to be his own family there to teach him about his family, his heritage and his God. Moses grew up with a solid foundation and lived a life that sparkled – he was truly a reflection of something greater than himself.


I believe with all my heart that each child was created by God with a purpose. His desire is to see each one of them to have faith in him – to sparkle!
My prayer is that parents will have a passion in their hearts to teach their children spiritual truths. That they will train their children up to have a faith in God and that their everyday lives will be a reflection of Him.

I know that families are very busy and they go in a million different directions, but I pray that they make the spiritual training of their children a daily priority.