Today was day three of E-Camp (Exalt Camp). Jennifer and I have been helping with the camp all week. Jennifer’s been spending all day there volunteering and helping with Hip-Hop dance. She was born to dance. (Unfortunately she has to do most of her dancing in our foyer with our kids.) I’ve been coming to camp for afternoon breakouts to help teach Psalm writing and Song writing to 7-12ish year olds. In each session there is a lesson and then some quiet time to journal. Then we all share what we wrote and we try to write a worship song from our collective thoughts and prayers. This week has been eye opening for me. I’ve definitely underestimated the mature and original heartfelt thoughts and prayers that kids have.

Today our lesson was on metaphors and similes. One of the girls (probably 9ish) shared this from her journal regarding her hurts and her friends…

“My heart is burning from the flaming swords and arrows that are being hurled at me and the “Fire of Nine Tails”.

She offered to go on but we stopped there to discuss it a bit. Another boy, earlier in the week said…

“God is better than a huge piece of sweet crunchy nougat.”

I’ve been surprised and humbled at how innocently honest the kids are willing to be and a bit embarrassed that I’m not always that way. These kids aren’t old enough to wear masks or fig leafs or whatever we think hides our shame. Only shameless innocence will allow a “tough” 8-year-old boy to describe God as a beautiful Blue Jay, or another to descried his current life as a giant Rubik’s Cube that is impossible to solve.

The spirit is deep water, no matter how old we are. Actually, maybe it’s deeper water when we are kids and over time, without knowing it, our spirit water gets shallower. Gosh I hope not. Maybe we just don’t know how to go to the bottom anymore.