I am typing this with sparkly pink fingernail polish. No joke. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever had pink painted on my fingers. Every other finger is pink. The ones in between are blue. They’re all sparkly. You should have seen the beaming face of the little girl who got to paint them.
I’ve expanded my knowledge database as well. I now know all the actions to “Pharaoh, Pharaoh.” I can rap “Humpty Dumpty.” I’ve personally met a very talented 11-year-old who can wrap both legs up over her head and around her neck. I learned something new about bacon bits, sunflower seeds, and a bread stick. Put a hole in the latter and stuff in the first two, and you’ve got a fairly tasty lunch. I learned that “Oh, tartar sauce!” can actually be used as an exclamation of extreme irritation. (From what I gather, the phrase was coined by none other than SpongeBob SquarePants.)
No, I haven’t been to college . . . I’ve been to camp! This last week Royal Family Kids’ Camp hosted five days of craziness at Covenant Cedars, a beautiful little camp half-an-hour down the road. Royal Family is an organization that reaches out to children who have been abused, neglected, and generally just not gotten a chance to be kids. So, Covenant Cedars got together 67 children, half as many counselors, and a whole host of other volunteers for a week of zip lines, bad hair days, canoeing, bubbles, and more. Every child’s dream world - and possibly mine too.
The counselors - they called us “big campers,” and that’s probably a more accurate description - arrived Sunday night, more or less cheerfully clueless, clutching our hair dye and streamers. Monday morning the kids came in on the bus, which we promptly sprinted - or panted - after down the driveway. The next five days went something like this: introduce-room-hat day-fishing-zip line-“aaahh”(that was me screaming going on the zip line)-sing-sunglasses-carnival-swim-eat-“don’t tip the canoe over!”(that was the kid in the canoe I was trying to maneuver)-magic show-ooh!-ah!-swim-yum, chocolate-we hate mosquitos-dress up-birthday party-eat-talent show-bubbles!-one last time on the zip line-do we have to pack?-eat-bye!
It was a great week. Although trying to describe it gets a little scrambled, as you may have noticed. I heard and saw all sorts of hilarious things, most of which are probably a “you had to be there . . .” sort of thing. I would, however, like to share with you just one moment in the midst of all the craziness at camp.
On Thursday night we held the best talent show I’ve ever seen. We had all sorts of amazing gymnasts, singers, dancers, magicians, hoola-hoopers, artists - and some other rather, um, fascinating talents. In the middle of all this laughter and very loud applause, one little boy walked up to the stage, gripped the microphone, and, calmly peering out at all of us, started to sing “Our God is an Awesome God.” It’s the most amazing rendition of that song I’ve ever heard. I don’t know that boy’s past; I didn’t even catch his name. But there we were - disheveled, sleepy-eyed counselors and darling, naughty kids who’d finally gotten a chance to be spoiled and loved on. And, perhaps as a response to this, one little boy was answering back, “Our God is an awesome God.”
It suddenly made impossible things seem not so impossible anymore. If a child who has been neglected - abused - who knows what? - if that same child can get up in front of a hundred people and sing out at the top of his lungs, “Our God is an awesome God . . .” What is it the Bible says, “From the lips of infants and children, You have ordained praise.” If the children will praise Him, how much more should we? If the children will give a gift so sincerely, so generously, how much more should we? Or, put in a different light, if we have perhaps somehow, somewhere let go of the simplicity of delighting in our Creator and letting Him delight in us . . . perhaps we need to become like little children again.
