Kids

So, I love kids. A lot. More then anyone could ever imagine. I love playing with them, talking to them, watching them, being surrounded them. The peace and joy kids bring to ones life is unimaginable. In the universe of a child, nothing can go wrong, nothing can ever be bad. Everything is great, wonderful, terrific. It's amazing to witness, to be a part of.

This is the reason I love working with the children at our church. For the most part, they love me, and I love them. Sometimes they are bad, and have to be punished, but they take it with grace, and love me no less. Yesterday, I had the blessing of keeping a few of these precious children in the gym at our church, while their parents worked on decorations for vacation bible school. Now, there were just 4 of them, and none of them normally played together. But I tell you, that didn't stop them! They played, and played hard. They just enjoyed having other kids around, and being out of school. With each other.

I sometimes forget, being with teenagers all the time, it's possible to meet new people. I'm not saying these kids didn't know each other, they did. But with teenagers... we just don't mingle like that. If we don't know you, we're not going to talk to you. Plain and simple. But kids... they'll walk right up and you'll soon be the best of friends.

And it's amazing the imagination even the quietest of kids have. We have a child who is, for the most part, deaf. But he holds imagination like the best of them. Jonah has the largest imagination of anyone I've ever met. But yesterday, we pulled out the small parachute that the church has, for them to play with. We all stood around for a while, playing games. Before long, though, they all wanted to sit underneath it. So we sat in a circle underneath, and I watched. I have to tell you, it was a blessing to watch those kids pretend with this parachute. It was simply amazing, the way they played and laughed.

The simplicity of a child is something I dearly wish I still possessed.