Wednesday, August 5, 2009

VBS Lessons

Who says the kids are the only ones that learn during VBS. The guides learn quite a few things as well. For example, Olivia learned that a paperball to the side of the head can hurt long after the incident. Sara learned that "train tag" can sometimes trigger chain-reaction tripping. Sam learned, after being nicknamed "The Cute One" and "My new boyfriend" by some of the girls, that he is very popular with the younger crowd. I learned that when you give a sugar-pumped 2nd grader a foam noodle and tell them to "tag" the other kids, people are going to get beamed in the head. Yes, there certainly are some interesting lessons to be learned at Vacation Bible School. But more important than these lessons, though they are funny to hear about, are the lessons we learn that opens our eyes to yet another layer of God's nature. On this subject, I learned about Joy. No, I'm not talking about the song. I'm talking about Joy like what you see on the kid's faces when they sing Jesus Loves Me rock and roll at the top of their lungs because they can. It's the laughing you hear during game time in between the paper fights and noodle duels. And it's even on Pastor Wayne's face when he shows how many cars we got for our food back train tonight. I believe that that's the kind of Joy he gives each and every one of us, all the time. Yet somehow, we all live our lives as though we don't have any reason to be happy half the time. I think it's high time that we injected a little more Joy into our lives and started looking at things the way God intended, instead of through the thick cloud of negativity and doubt that this world so happily provides. I'm not immune from this myself. I'm going to make a change to start taking the Joy that I've been given and actually using it. Starting now. :)

BYL!

~Rachel