Yesterday I posted about the time I had to stop and breathe. During this time God came and nurtured me, and gave me a list of dot points to “do” (note: it is a high priority to “be” every day, before I “do”).

One of my dot points was literally: “JMAB – skype lessons.”

JMAB is an elite ballet school.  It provides excellent dance tuition to literally hundreds of children, who represent 100’s of families in our wider community.  The school has existed for YEARS!

With the prospect of community distancing, schools shutting, and our suburbs getting ready to go into shut down I became acutely aware of the needs of our ballet school, and how very vulnerable the staff would be feeling. Now, this was last week people, so Australia was still not really seeing the writing on the wall.  I have always prayed for every school community that we are a part of, and this school is no exception, and so, as this season of challenge accelerated over the last few weeks I have found myself praying more and more for JMAB staff.

Now, I have learnt to hold my tongue with God ideas, and to go gently gently, especially with pre Christians, although on this I stuff up all the time.  So, I sat on this idea and waited for God’s timing, for a natural opportunity to make the suggestion.

It came Sunday afternoon!

I received a text that the school would be shut down due to State Government guidelines.

I texted the staff member back saying:

Hi S

We have set up a studio in our lounge room. We would love privates by video by video – what are your thoughts? This way we can support the studio financially through this time and the kids can keep training xxx

Note: I wanted to keep the idea small to start with, but I saw it HUGE – much bigger than just the odd private lesson

I then texted more:

We are setting up our cameras etc too 🙂 Maybe J could put the level 2 music and other music online for the kids too.  There is so much we can do as a community to keep JMAB going xxx

As I texted, I read what I wrote to my husband and as I did waves of the Presence, or surges of God’s anointing came and covered me powerfully. It took me by surprise, but though laughter, and it’s intensity I thought “ok God must be on this”.

Then suddenly the phone rang.

It was S.

We then proceeded to have a discussion. I told S I had been praying for them all and that last week I had felt I had received this idea as I prayed for them.  I told her I wanted her to know they were not alone, and that they were important to us.  That JMAB and staff were important to the community.

S had a number of challenges with the idea.  She was already defeated and deflated. I gently came back with decent suggestions to counter the issues (the ideas just came people) and as I did she slowly warmed to the idea and even started saying how it could perhaps work, and she started problem solving for herself, and she started to sound more hopeful. I knew not to be too intense, to let the idea slowly simmer. After quite a lengthy call, I hung up hopeful, trusting and praying that she would communicate the ideas to J, the principal of the school.

I had to trust God!

Yesterday I drove my daughter to the school to empty her locker, and while there my daughter saw J, the principal teacher.

J said to my daughter that she hoped to see her soon … AND she said that she was hoping to do some classes online … !!!

When my daughter jumped back into the car and told me MY HEART SANG!!

We are called to be salt and light to the world (Matthew 5:13-16).

Salt preserves.

Salt brings cohesion to a recipe, it binds the flavours together.

Salt also highlights and intensifies flavours.

I’m hoping God’s salt will preserve JMAB and staff in this time of uncertainty for so many.  Just a sprinkle, and I trust He will do the rest – because He cares more for them than I do.

How do we be salt?

We release Him as we go, we release His ideas as we go, and we pray for people (in our prayer closets, and in the open). We seek His ideas for them, and if we have the opportunity we gently communicate those ideas (whether saying He gave them or not)

How do we not lose our saltiness?

We spend time with the One who created everything,  We read His word, we worship, we pray, we journal … we dream with God.

And as we do, in these uncertain times, more than ever people will see that …

God is Good!