Leaning and Learning

I'm having to remember to Lean on God. He is in control of this situation and he will help us to get through it. Last night working with the youth was so great. It was back to doing something "normal" whatever that word might mean. Throughout the last week, I've really had to rely on the Lord's Prayer a lot. Sometimes, I just repeated "Give me strength, Give me strength", sometimes it was "Heal my daddy, heal my daddy". I long ago learned that the Lord doesn't care how eloquent our prayers, He just cares that they are heartfelt and sincere. I really got to youth with no true lesson plan. We had planned to go and watch Tri-chord in Hot Springs, but with everything up in the air with Dad, that just didn't happen.

Anyway Pebs shared her lesson plan for the KCIC, and I decided it would work great for my youth. Re-write the Lord's prayer in a way that they could really identify with it.

We broke into 4 groups:

The first group wrote a "rap" version:

Our Father up in Heaven
Reveal yourself 24/7
Your kingdom on earth
bring here your worth.
Give us today our daily bread
And forgive us for our messed up head
Forgive those other brothers
Who keep crackin' jokes about Yo Motha
Keep us from doing wrong
So we can keep on rappin' Yo song.
Protect us from the devil.
So we can keep our heads on, straight & level.
For Yours is the kingdom, glory & power.
And Your love reigns down like a shower.
When I say "A" you say "men"

The second group came up with:

Our Poppa who lives in Heaven,
We honor Your sacred name.
Make Your sanctuary on Earth
As it is in Heaven.
Give us Your daily gift of nutrition.
Forgive us our weaknesses,
As we forgive those in their
times of weakeness.
Lead us away from deception and
onto a path of faith.
For in Your sanctuary
is the strength and
Victory for all Eternity.
Amen

The 3rd group were a little less "formal" but no less enthusiastic:

Yo, Father in Heaven,
Show us who you is.
Make our home right,
fo sho as you do in Heaven.
Keep our bellies full.
Forgive our brothers & sisters
for what they have did.
Keep the devil from
doing his thang.
Because You are the King.
'Cause You can do what you want.
Fo sho
Peace to my Peeps.
Amen

Finally the KCIC (kids under 5th grade)

Yo, Dad who lives in Heaven
How rad is your name.
When You make this Your home,
Your words will rule,
The same as in Your crib.
Feed us big Daddy.
Show us mercy and
we will show everyone else mercy.
Let us make good choices.
Give us Your helping hand.
For You are the King, You have the
rad power, and you have the
awesome glory.
To infinity and beyond!!!!!!
Word!

This exercise reminds me that sometimes we take ourselves to seriously. Sometimes, I felt we were walking a bit of a line between prayer and blasphemy. The most important thing to me, was the fact that these kids had out their Bibles, there was discussion, and they worked as a team to take each line of the Lord's prayer and really understand what it means. For some of these younger kids, it was probably the first time that they realized that we aren't called to pray "AT" God, but rather to Him. It's a conversation, a dialogue. That was the real lesson learned (and re-learned)last night.

Daddy continues to improve S L O W L Y but surely. I want to see immediate results, but that's just not the plan here. I'm slowly learning to accept that fact.

We just keep reminding him of Brett's favorite verse:
Phillipians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength".