Chasing Rabbits

I love getting the chance to see the world through the eyes of my 4th and 5th graders.

We had a small group this week (technically three small groups, as I had my own kids and the kids from two other groups), and the kids relished the chance to not have to be quite so loud in order to be heard!

One of the fifth grade girls was quick to remind us that we could share "sad" things about our weeks as well as awesome things. The kids from the other groups looked at her like she was a little crazy and then jumped right in, quick to follow her confident example.

The verse for the month is Proverbs 19:7-8, which is chock full of weird words and phrases, so we were dissecting it a little. "The statutes of the Lord are just, making wise the simple," translated into kid speak as, "even if you have a hard time knowing how to make good choices, following God's rules will always turn out to be a wise choice."

There were still a few furrowed brows, so I clarified, "Can you be super smart and still have a hard time making smart decisions?" Lightbulb as one of the girls looks at me. "Like M! He's really smart, but he lots of times doesn't make good decisions." And, boom. They all knew exactly what the verse was talking about. Not the illustration I would have used, but, whatever works.

Note: M wasn't present this week, but she could have (would have) said the exact same thing to his face, and he would not have taken offense, because there us something entirely earnest about her, even as she is grinning and referring to the boys from their school as 'her knuckleheads.'

We ran and climbed a tree and threw seed balls and ran some more. We found a rabbit in the parking lot and made sure that it stayed out of the classrooms. We listened to a story and snuck into big church to hear a spoken word piece from a guest artist.

But, the kids' response when prompted to think of something that they had learned or God had done during church that they could tell their parents about was unanimously, "like the rabbit!"

Yes. Like the rabbit. Like the rabbit that God put in the parking lot just for us because He delights in giving gifts that make His children smile and because there is something that He wants you to remember about this week. This week with the rabbit and the poet who has rad hair and words that are faster than your brain can comprehend. I don't know what it is, but He does.