Tonight, I finally saw that babysitting is a ministry.

I am a part time nanny. I pick up two kids, Steven (11) and Seth (5), about 3 times a week from school and I take them to their house and stay with them until one of their parents gets home from work. I also keep them every other weekend and every now and then on a Sunday night. I love my job. But I've always just seen it as a job, and I love the kids and their family, but I've never before seen it as a ministry. Tonight, I had the opportunity to babysit for a two little boys that I had never met before. Long story short, they are from New Orleans and are living here with their mother at her cousins' house in The Settlement. She needed a babysitter so that she could go to a Beth Moore simulcast at our church. I planned on keeping these kids free of charge and paying for whatever we were gonna go and do (God's been teaching me how blessed I am and that He has given me money so that I can bless others, and not be selfish with HIS money). When we were loading up my car with the kids, she was trying to hand me some money and I said "don't worry about it...this is my ministy"... It was one of those moments that God was meaning those words more for me to hear than for this lady to hear. It totally suprised me that I said that, and after I said it, God just really revealed to me that keeping kids is more than just a way to earn money, it's actually a way for me to minister to families. I mean, for hours at a time, people actually trust me to keep their kids alive, feed and safe, and they even trust me with their houses and possesions. I have sole responsiblity over these kids for a part of their day, and for a person who doesn't even know me to feel at ease with ME keeping their kids really made ME feel blessed! Because, I know that it's nothing I have done, but rather what God is doing through me. So, tonight I finally started to understand another aspect of that verse about 'whatever you do....do it for the Lord'. Because I am not just keeping these kids because the 'suchandsuch' family asked me to, but because for whatever reason, God CHOSE me too.