Living Gracefully: When You Learn the Same Lesson as a Seven Year Old...

Living Gracefully: When You Learn the Same Lesson as a Seven Year Old...: I was so blessed to have the opportunity to help with a two week camp offered by my church this summer. We just wrapped up the first week q...

When You Learn the Same Lesson as a Seven Year Old

I was so blessed to have the opportunity to help with a two week camp offered by my church this summer. We just wrapped up the first week quite successfully.The job that was assigned to me could not be better fitting. I have the pleasure of working with the 7-8 year old children. Whenever I serve in capacities such as this one, this strange thing always seems to happen to me; I always go into these situations thinking that I have something special to bring to the table. Incidentally, I am always proved wrong.

My class is a group of around 33 students and, for the most part, they all are happy to be attending this summer camp. You can see a look of excitement on their faces when they arrive in the morning. I usually get an average of about 198 hugs throughout the course of the day. In my experience with children, I have found that there seems to be four categories in which I can put them: there are the goody two shoes type who are practically perfect in every way and obey every word of instruction, there are the goof balls who cannot seem to sit still to save their lives, there are the tattle tail-ers who love to give me a visit every 5 minutes with all of the latest gossip, and then there are the downcast ones who carry an attitude of rejection, kind of like that cartoon character with the rain cloud over his head.  It's not that those are the only four categories, but they are the categories that I observe most often in these types of situations.

Little Joseph always sits in the back of the room by himself, refusing to join with the rest of the group. This past week, I really felt sorry for him-wondering what the heck his deal was. I pretty much thought that I wouldn't be able to "break through the barrier" and truly communicate with him, so my plan was to try my best to tolerate him for the duration of the camp; however, this morning, things took an interesting turn. My rowdy crew was sitting down to a messy tie dye and glue t-shirt craft (questionable idea, eh?) and almost everyone was contentedly engaging in the project. As I was assisting one of the children, I heard an ear-piercing cry from Mister Joseph. I ran to the situation and tried to figure out what was going on. Apparently, the kids sitting around him had left him out of their conversation and then, later, started talking badly about him to each other. Joseph angrily filled me in on what had happened. He was pointing to everyone around him and crying hysterically. He then got up from his chair and went to sit by himself at a nearby bench. I looked at this 7 year old boy with judgement and irritation. I thought to myself, "Why does he always look at people through a frame of rejection? Why does he even make a point to start this unnecessary trouble instead of just enjoying the summer camp? He should know better."  At that instant, I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, "Hmm, that sounds just like what you are doing." My bitter attitude melted as I recalled two situations in which I had recently bought in to the lie of rejection and allowed it to continually bathe my heart. In both situations I had allowed the lie of rejection to tint the lenses by which I view the world. 

So after my subtle rebuke from my very best and most faithful friend, I went and sat by little Joseph and gently gave him the same advice as the Holy Spirit was giving me in that moment. I told him that the rejection he was feeling was simply not the truth. I told him that he should take time each day to sit still and ask Jesus to tell him what He thinks of  him instead of worrying about what other people think of him. I told him that every time he felt the sting of rejection, he should try to remember all of the kind things that people have done for him-which takes effort to remember in those heated moments. As we talked, I could feel a beautiful peace come over us. Even with such different lives, we were receiving the same type of healing from our heavenly Father.