I love to read about revival in days gone by. My library is filled with books of the great revivalists and records of their revivals.
A couple of months ago, I came across a book describing facts about the Azusa Street Revival that I’ve never read before. In Tommy Welchel’s They Told Me Their Stories, I read of accounts as seen through the eyes of people who were children and youth during the rvival. I was thrilled as I read of children and youth who lived in the Glory of God.
One chapter tells of a Jean Darnall who was three-years-old at the beginning of the revival. This little girl witnessed the Glory of God in an undeniable fashion that forever impacted her life. While she didn’t understand everything at this young age, she knew that “she was comfortable with the thick mist that filled the room. Being in a playful mood when she woke up from her nap, she would try to gather the mist into her arms. She loved the cloud that filled the Azusa Street Warehouse for almost three and one-half years during what is now historically called the Azusa Street Revival. It would be a few years before Jean was old enough to understand that she was trying to capture the Glory of God.”
I contend that the children in our ministries need to witness the manifest presence of God. There are present day Jean Darnalls who could be forever changed by God’s presence filling our classroom and service. I am convinced that the Glory of God is still readily available for our children to witness. While the Shekinah Glory of God manifests in different ways at different times, just one glimpse of His Glory and the children will never ever be the same again.
