Remember

It's the only clear photo that I have of today. This one that a fifth grader took. Tired eyes. Pulling a face at her as soon as she pointed the phone in my direction. Things scattered everywhere, as if a tornado has struck in our "girl cave" under the stairs. Pants too short over my ankles.

One girl, maybe two still hurriedly drawing out today's books of the Bible. No one in frame doing anything particularly churchy.

And, yet.

K*r*ss* is behind me, carefully winding up a top that first came from Honduras. K*d*n is belly down, flipping through pictures of twelve-year-old me in Nicaragua. Laughing. Sorting them into two piles. Photos that I am in, and photos that I am not.

Because, this is how we do church.

This is how we do church when it's daylight savings time. When they don't have a worship leader. And, when the story presenters are different than normal.

My girls jump up front with me to help the 4th and 5th grade director lead ad hoc music while we wait for the videos to load. Jesus Loves Me and Amazing Grace and Father Abraham. Words but no music while fifty little voices belt out Like a Lion.

"Let love explode and bring the dead to life

A love so bold

To see a revolution somehow"

As if, on this day of celebration, with its balloons and cookies and brightly printed banners, we are being quietly reminded of the messiness of this thing that we are doing. The rawness of humanity pressing up against the Divine.

The squirrely one slips her hand into mine as we sing. Presses down on my shoulders while we pray. Hears a dozen reprimands and jumps on just as many chances to serve.

They whisper during story and try to remember where on earth Hebrews is hiding in their Bibles. We draw and look and pictures, and we run, skip, spin, and army crawl with a well worn set of relay cards. They play Fl*ppy Bird and mancala on my phone.

Too loud in the hallway. Climbing the outside of the stairwell. Boy in this girls' group because he knows us better. Messy in every way.

Holy.

Holy when their voices ring out. 

Holy when K*d*n mentions their girl cave and when K*yl* asks if we're going "upstairs."

Holy when we build into them with these tactile sensations that their bodies are going to remember long after their minds have forgotten the specifics of todays lesson.

Holy when my seventh graders are back in another season of "remember."

"Remember when you used to bring us donuts?"

"Remember how you used to chase me?"

"Remember when I was a baby?"

"Remember when…?"

Remember.

Remind me. Remind me that Jesus makes me enough. Remind me of the sanctity of this place where we come to love God and love each other. Remind me that nothing else matters.

So we remind and we remember. I chase this one and catch him and chase him again. Lead this group out to the foyer to get cookies. Put the balloons back when that one can't quite figure out how too fix what he undid.

Hand out gum. Let them look at pictures.

Play a game and roll my eyes at a dozen antics. Shake my head when they need to stop. And, laugh often. (The middle schoolers are convinced that I'm always happy and I always laugh.)

Lend out my name tag and let them store their stuff in my bag.

Sit in breakout groups where we talk about authority and their favorite kind of ice cream. Let them push me into a garbage can as payback for the game. Run up stairs and around corners and wear half a dozen different names as we try to squeeze everything that we can out of these brief moments, feeling the quiet press of time.

Never enough hands or lips or ears or moments to communicate the bigness of this God. Never enough chances to whisper truth or shout it across this room that is throbbing with life and hurt and mess and beauty.

And, yet, somehow, more than what we need.

Not, because of us, but because of Him. Because of Grace that is sufficient. Because of Strength that is made perfect in weakness.

Because of this God. This Holy that shows up in voices of thirty-three high schoolers and a handful of leaders as they sing in the basement of a building that is probably older than any of the kids. That shows up even when the youth pastor is gone for the week. Even when we're still trying to figure out which clocks are wrong and which ones are right.

That sends six pizzas in the front door just as we are trying to determine if we have any snacks for the kids. Not because they need it. No one here is starving. But, because, sometimes I think that He likes to remind us how much He works outside of our plans.

How He shows up in the loose and the messy and the not quite finished around the edges.

How things don't have to look "right" in order to be holy.

Because, my seventh graders aren't the only ones who need to remember.