"I think that I need self control." One of the girls who has been nonsense talking a mile a minute laughs when I repeat the directions a second - third - time and her brain finally slows down enough to hear them.
"Maybe." My own twisting line of sticker dots is headed towards the 'patience' line, and I hand her a sheet of brightly colored circles. Because, there simply 'happens' to be the exact same number of children as there are sticker sheets, so that even my oldest-sibling always-watching-out-for-everyone-else kiddos don't have to think twice or figure out how to share.
We're a little wild this week, hands and arms and legs bumping and jostling and bouncing off of each other, as if the action itself can prove that they are real and safe and loved, and her eyes widen as I repeat the instructions. Choose a character trait that you need help with and talk to Jesus about that thing as you put down a row of stickers.
"I think that I am going to just put mine random."
She deals with anxiety by trying to distract herself. Asking to go to the bathroom after she has participated in something in front of the large group. Playing with the buckle on her Bible during story. Keeping constant watch on the clock. Randomly placing stickers so that she doesn't have to worry about messing up.
At almost eleven, she is only beginning to learn about this Grace that covers us. Grace that knows her past and her future, knows every well earned fear in her little heart.
We first met at RFKC. She has every reason for this constant fight for acceptance, approval. But, there is something magic that falls over these girls when they pray with their hands.
We first met at RFKC. She has every reason for this constant fight for acceptance, approval. But, there is something magic that falls over these girls when they pray with their hands.
Trace labyrinths with their fingers. Weave strips of fabric into miniature looms. Cootie catchers. Paint. Duct tape. Markers.
Sticker after sticker after sticker.
They go calm and silent in the sunshine, forget about the grass poking through the blanket and the third graders who are within shouting distance farther down the lawn. Forget about sore feet and worries about what we are going to do at camp over the 4th of July. Forget about the littles screaming and laughing on the play set across the parking lot and the dogs in the truck closest to us. Forget about everything but their conversation with the One Who Hears.
If we have practiced anything this year, it might be the fact that prayer is always a thing that is worth fighting for. That, when our bodies are wild and our minds won't stop and our hearts are full, there is all the more reason to pray.
Some weeks I almost give it up. Surrender to the chaos. Slap a few new pieces into their notebooks and take them to the hill to run off some steam. But, this is worth fighting for.
They can feel changes nipping at their heels. The end of the school year. Transitions. Summer. And, we spend the first part of our morning going over the dates. Over and over and over again. This is what is happening. This is when it is happening. This is what there will be to eat. This is who will be there.
Rip papers. Take pictures. Run up and down a grassy slope and scream at the top of our lungs that, "Jesus loves you!" Play keep away in the hall. Trade name tags. Misplace Bibles more times than ought to be possible.
Grace.
Grace that shows up in the middle and in between. 7th grade girls who help me search out glue sticks for the 5th graders and who fill my phone with a hundred pictures of the same carpet square, doodling over the selfies left behind by 7th grade boys. Kids who whisper prayer requests when they are supposed to be listening to a lesson.
Shoulders that bounce off my arm just a little above the elbow as one tells me about being chased around the playground by four-year-olds and a trip across the parking lot to search for quarters for another who wants to buy cookies. Made up song motions with the one who stands a hairsbreadth from my arm, almost occupying the same space. Two with almost matching names who ping pong off of my sides the way that they were taught by an older brother.
A freshman boy who stops to talk in the foyer, "which one do you like better, middle school or high school?"
Both.
It's one of those weeks, where we walk out of a leaders' meeting to find high school boys on the roof, because sensory seekers, y'all. The middle and elementary schoolers aren't the only ones bubbling over with this wild energy that comes with sunshine and warmth and summer feeling several weeks closer than it actually is.
We play musical chairs in the parking lot and cram into newly formed rows of pews. Count kids. Watch carefully. Rejoice when the ones who could choose to disappear mid activity don't. Pray and sing and listen and pray some more.
Grace.
One of the senior boys takes his turn to share with the younger classes, and I am blinded once again by the faithfulness of Divine Love.
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
Last week's senior has been going to Haiti with us since he was a wide eyed freshman, learning valuable lessons about sunscreen and giving piggy back rides until his shoulders bled.
This week, we hear from a senior who didn't live here his freshman year at all.
But, still.
He tells his story, and I remember marking dates on my calendar to pray for his sister's surgery. Praying through the long weeks that led up to that point. Sitting in an unfinished basement with cluster girls scattered on half a dozen pieces of furniture and hearing the outcome.
He was only in ninth grade, fourteen, maybe fifteen years old. Incredibly uncertain about this whole Jesus thing. But, one of my girls had a friend in another state who was sick and needed prayer. So, we prayed. And, now he's sitting here telling us about it.
"There [we] come to the shocking, but at the same time self evident, insight that prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence." The Wounded Healer, pg 17
Grace.
Grace even for leader hearts that sometimes need a reminder: prayer is a thing worth fighting for.
By the time they graduate, I have prayed a couple of hundred hours for each one of these precious kids in their high school years alone.
There are plenty of leader things that I will never come close to perfecting, but I can do this thing. I can pray for them like breathing. Type out prayers or write them long hand. Talk out loud in my car or silently in my head. Pray in words and pictures and feelings. Pray for their courage and their growth, their peace and their comfort. Pray that they would know their value and know how to value others.
Pray for boldness and healing, curiosity and security. Pray for answers to questions and questions to answers. Pray that they would know this Love.
When they are scared, sick, hurt, anxious, excited, exhausted and the Spirit nudges, I can pray. When old hurts or doubts worm their way to the surface, when lies whisper in their ears and a thousand different things keep them awake at night. When my Atlanta stuck self can feel the exact moment that they pull into compound in Fond Parisien or into the church in Fond Cheval. When there is nothing left to offer. When I can't do anything else.
I can pray.
Careful dot after careful dot. Connecting stories. Finding quiet in the midst of overlapping conversations, jostling feet and elbows and thrown hips.
Prayer like breathing.
It isn't much. But, perhaps it is.
A freshman boy who stops to talk in the foyer, "which one do you like better, middle school or high school?"
Both.
It's one of those weeks, where we walk out of a leaders' meeting to find high school boys on the roof, because sensory seekers, y'all. The middle and elementary schoolers aren't the only ones bubbling over with this wild energy that comes with sunshine and warmth and summer feeling several weeks closer than it actually is.
We play musical chairs in the parking lot and cram into newly formed rows of pews. Count kids. Watch carefully. Rejoice when the ones who could choose to disappear mid activity don't. Pray and sing and listen and pray some more.
Grace.
One of the senior boys takes his turn to share with the younger classes, and I am blinded once again by the faithfulness of Divine Love.
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
Last week's senior has been going to Haiti with us since he was a wide eyed freshman, learning valuable lessons about sunscreen and giving piggy back rides until his shoulders bled.
This week, we hear from a senior who didn't live here his freshman year at all.
But, still.
He tells his story, and I remember marking dates on my calendar to pray for his sister's surgery. Praying through the long weeks that led up to that point. Sitting in an unfinished basement with cluster girls scattered on half a dozen pieces of furniture and hearing the outcome.
He was only in ninth grade, fourteen, maybe fifteen years old. Incredibly uncertain about this whole Jesus thing. But, one of my girls had a friend in another state who was sick and needed prayer. So, we prayed. And, now he's sitting here telling us about it.
"There [we] come to the shocking, but at the same time self evident, insight that prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence." The Wounded Healer, pg 17
Grace.
Grace even for leader hearts that sometimes need a reminder: prayer is a thing worth fighting for.
By the time they graduate, I have prayed a couple of hundred hours for each one of these precious kids in their high school years alone.
There are plenty of leader things that I will never come close to perfecting, but I can do this thing. I can pray for them like breathing. Type out prayers or write them long hand. Talk out loud in my car or silently in my head. Pray in words and pictures and feelings. Pray for their courage and their growth, their peace and their comfort. Pray that they would know their value and know how to value others.
Pray for boldness and healing, curiosity and security. Pray for answers to questions and questions to answers. Pray that they would know this Love.
When they are scared, sick, hurt, anxious, excited, exhausted and the Spirit nudges, I can pray. When old hurts or doubts worm their way to the surface, when lies whisper in their ears and a thousand different things keep them awake at night. When my Atlanta stuck self can feel the exact moment that they pull into compound in Fond Parisien or into the church in Fond Cheval. When there is nothing left to offer. When I can't do anything else.
I can pray.
Careful dot after careful dot. Connecting stories. Finding quiet in the midst of overlapping conversations, jostling feet and elbows and thrown hips.
Prayer like breathing.
It isn't much. But, perhaps it is.
