There is a sweet little boy attending our church, who reminds me of Count Zinzendorf.
How?
His grandmother is raising him in a large, friendly home in the country, because his momma is having trouble in life right now. Zinzendorf was born to a recent widow, who then remarried a common soldier who didn’t really like the boy. Both she and Zinzendorf’s grandmother thought it better to prepare him for the life of a count by letting him grow up in the grandmother’s castle.
Our little boy is quite bright, as was the count.
He has an amazing interest in the things of God, memorizing prayers, for instance, and wanting to pray them aloud in church like the men do. Ditto with Zinzendorf.
But the big similarity I see is this:
He loves putting money in the offering boxes inside the entrances of our building. Being only six years old, he has no income for putting into the offering boxes. His interest in these boxes is constant. He’s been told the money is for God, for God’s work, etc. One day he caught the church treasurer taking the money out to be deposited later, in the local bank. This would be what most churches would do, but our little guy was completely appalled because he thought the dear lady was robbing God’s money.
She was quick to explain to him that she was not taking the money for herself, but only taking it out of the box to make sure it stayed safe so it can be used for God’s work.
This set the little wheels inside his head to turning. What else could he think but that this church treasurer had an “in” with God Almighty. He was totally awed, then.
And he had a plan.
Knowing a bit about writing notes and taking notes, he has confused the two. Sitting between his gramma and his auntie every Sunday, and watching them take notes in church, he’s begun imitating this practice. Whatever the preacher says, that gets through his normal-six-year-old distractedness, he writes down, asking the adults around him for help with spelling.
He is taking notes.
Then the word-confusion begins. When church is over, he folds up his paper and inserts it into the offering box, commenting confidently, “This is a note for God.” He fully expects the church secretary to make sure it is delivered.
And the comparison, here, to Zinzendorf? As a child, he used to write prayers on small pieces of paper and climb to the top of the highest turret in his grandmother’s castle, tossing them out the window, to get them to God.
The townspeople would find these small prayer offerings floating around on the ground very touching and inspiring .
We’ve got a similarity there, too.
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