I grab my camera and head to the gym...wanting to snap some pictures of little ones making hand prints. I snap a few and realize that there is not enough time for everyone to make prints and so I set the camera down and begin to help.
Time slows and all hands are painted. We head to the gym and I walk with the one who wears Super Man shoes. He asks, "Where are we going now?".
"It is time to go home," I say and he looks wide eyed at me and responds, "already?"
"You had fun today," I say and he asks me how I know that.
I smile because fun is living in a moment without thinking of the next.
Dressed in his chapel shirt he comes to me in the midst of the going home chaos. He hands me his drawing and points to the throne he made and his idea of God sitting there.
"Would you write a Bible verse for me?" because he can't write yet. Being drawn by bouncing children and a line of cars full of waiting parents I almost miss it.
I take the pencil from his hand and we kneel there at the altar rail. There is only one thing to write...the one thing I want every child who comes on Wednesday to leave knowing. The pencil prints out letters to make the words I daily try to live..."Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength". I smile at him and time stands still.
The words I read this morning from One Thousand Gifts ring true:
"Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing...Through all that haste I thought was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away."
I almost threw it away...a holy moment in His sanctuary.
"I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. Thanksgiving makes time. Thanksgiving creates abundance; and the miracle of multiplying happens when I give thanks..."
And so I continue the thanks.
29...little brown eyed boys, a volunteer who goes to Walmart to get what I forgot.
31...spaghetti on faces, and painted hands
33...lunch with a friend.
