Press Play: Helping Your Kids Build ConfidenceSample

There comes a time in every seven-year-old’s life when she or he is faced with the biggest decision they have ever made. Life-altering kind of stuff. For Lil Los, this decision happened on a Monday morning in 1982 in the cafeteria of Rehoboth Elementary in Decatur, Georgia. It was the decision to audition for the elementary school circus. 

Every single kid at Lil Los’s school had to be in the circus. Some kids were seals. Some were clowns. Some were elephants. The more athletic ones were trapeze artists. But there was only one Ring Master, and that spot was usually reserved for a fifth grader. 

But when Mrs. Stevens, Lil Los’s second-grade teacher, asked who wanted to audition for the role of Ring Master, Lil Los felt his own skinny little arm begin to LIFT ABOVE HIS SHOULDER. There was nothing about Lil Los that said “Ring Master.” He was shy and small. He stuttered and he spoke English with a thick Mexican accent. So, before he lifted his hand all the way up, he grabbed it with his other arm and slammed it back down. “Phew. That was a close call,” Lil Los thought to himself. 

Mrs. Stevens peeked up from behind her pointy glasses . . . “Carlos? Was that your hand I saw?” Lil Los froze. Pause. And then, out of nowhere . . . 

LIL LOS LANDED THE ROLE OF RING MASTER. 

In that moment, Lil Los felt panicked.

If your child has been going to church for a while or has read many stories from the Bible, he or she might know by now there’s nothing God loves more than to pull off the seemingly impossible. Well, besides them. He definitely loves them more. Still. Even when God’s plans seem impossible, our children can be confident that God’s plan IS the best plan. 

To this day, I don’t know what made Lil Los’s hand go up. But I do know that God had a plan. And His plan for that circus turned out to be way better than Lil Los’s plan (which, to be clear, was to hide in the back inside a full-body seal costume). 

Guess what Mrs. Stevens said to Lil Los after class that day? 

“Carlos! I’m so proud of you for raising your hand! I know that we normally have an older Ring Master, but this year a lot more of your classmates’ family members speak Spanish and not English. Do you think you could say your lines in English AND in Spanish?” 

Lil Los’s eyes got HUGE. Of course, he could do that! The confidence that rushed into Lil Los’s heart in that moment was straight from God—the exact same confidence that God is going to send into your child’s heart when they start trusting His plan too.