Hi! I’m Sharon Leslie, Mr. Leslie’s daughter…the “older” Mr. Leslie. And when Lindsey does the airplane with her hand and says, “Cha…Utah!” That’s me! I am a member of Berean Baptist Church in Ogden, Utah, and I teach in our academy here.
The large part of my ministry…thus my life, is spent with children in school, Sunday School, bus routes, and nursery. It thrills me, then, to think of how Christ directly related service and care for children with service to Him. What a privilege to serve Christ in simple, but very real ways every day! My job is to show children the works of God. I love watching them discover with amazement the design-features of God’s Creation: the precision seen in math and language, the beauty of science, and His power and providence in history. My job is to proclaim the glory of God!
You better believe every day is not perfect. Not long ago, we attempted to make butter in our 1st-3rd Colonial History class. I read that by putting heavy whipping cream in a glass jar and shaking a LOT, it would eventually turn into butter. I even read the scientific explanations of forcible integration of molecular substances within the lipids…blah, blah, blah. It actually made sense, even sounded “easy!” Right!
The kids took turns shaking the glass jar while we read about colonial times & colored. At one point, I heard the jar glance off the table, but I saw no crack or mess. Whew! The student continued shaking; I continued reading. Then, without adieu, Pwhoosh! The bottom fell off the jar! I heard a collective “Uh-oh!” from the students. Cream went all over and we ended up with a class project of cleaning cream off the floor! Before it was all over, we ended up losing another jar and the cream inside. Plus, one pat of butter bounced out of the cold-water bowl, onto the floor.
But in the end, we…made…butter!!! WE MADE BUTTER!!! And it tasted good! Like butter! The kids took some home to share with their families. They talked about it for days, and will not soon forget that!
It happens that way sometimes. Things that should be “easy enough” just don’t quite work out the way they should, for whatever reason. The students just don’t “get” the carefully prepared lesson. Visitors don’t show up for the “Big Day.” You wake up one day and feel lousy, and the whole day is lousy. But there are “laws,” like the laws of butter chemistry, which really do “work” when we keep at it. God is good. He does work things out, in His time, for His glory and our good. And He has everlasting mercy, and amazing grace! Truly, amazing grace!
So we keep evangelizing the lost, teaching our students, praying for ourselves and others, sharing meals together, reading our Bibles, reading to 2-year olds, grading papers, laughing at 7th grader jokes, loving our church family, waking up in the morning, and going to bed at night. Often it seems redundant and without quantifiable successes, but “God blesses routine faithfulness.” And in all of this, God reforms and strengthens our love for Him, and our commitment to Him. He gives grace and blesses more than we imagined. He turns a goofy 3rd grader into a godly-minded Christian. He saves people, our friends and neighbors. And He loves me! What a great God we serve!
