Whatever

Brown construction paper.

That, plus some well-worn crayons and dull scissors, composed our entire allotment of our craft supplies.

And for I-don't-know-how-many weeks in a row, whenever the kids came to church, craft time meant making things out of brown construction paper.

We'd scoured the Bible looking for stories we could share with the kids in which a corresponding craft could be based on brown construction paper:

-Crosses
-Loaves and Fishes
-10 Commandments tablets
-Boats for Peter to step out of
-Bricks for the Tower of Babel
-Balaam's Donkey
-Rocks (as in "He who is without sin may cast the first stone")

As the list grew so did the desperation.

Walking to the church that chilly, gray Sunday afternoon, brown construction paper was all I had. I had no lesson. I had no activity. I had no idea what to do with the paper or the kids and no energy left to even try to figure anything out.

I'd like to say that I prayed for wisdom or inspiration or for a miracle or a combination thereof but I was too drained for that. It was a more of a half-hearted "Whatever" kind of prayer instead.

I arrived at the church just as one of our volunteers was pulling up in her car. She beeped the horn and flagged me over.

As I crossed the street she hopped out of her car and said, "My mom was in town and we were at Sam's Club yesterday. She asked if she could buy some things for the church."

As she said this the trunk popped open revealing its contents. In it were stacks of construction paper of every possible color. There were buckets of magic markers and containers of scissors. Yarn. Tape. Clay. Glue (both bottles and sticks!). The smell of the fresh boxes of crayons was the sweetest perfume.

This was Noah's rainbow and Joseph's coat of many colors and the lilies of the field and Lydia's purple goods all stuffed in a Nissan Sentra. We emptied the trunk and set the supplies on the table for all the kids to see.

And they reveled in the color. Busy hands drew and colored and folded and cut. Boisterous voices and laughter joined the celebration. Today there was no hunting and hording and fighting over the best crayons. Instead, the bounty shared with us begot a sharing of this bounty with one another.

Today's craft:

Thank You Cards.

Whatever, Lord. Whatever.

Trunk

The funeral did not go well.

From beginning to end, one thing after another went wrong in ways I could not have imagined. It wasn't the funeral home's fault. It wasn't the family's fault. It wasn't my fault. It just did not go well.

It wasn't just my opinion, either. While at the cemetery, the funeral director turned to me and in his most compassionate, professional, somber, funeral home voice said to me, "I'm thinking of climbing into the trunk of the limo until this is over. Would you care to join me?"

Yes, it was that bad.

And in that moment, being secluded from everyone and everything carried great appeal, even if it meant being in the limo's dark trunk.

The desire to hide in a dark place is quite familiar to me. It's not unusual to have seasons when multiple things go horribly wrong. It's no one's fault; they just happen. And there's no sense in trying to find the good in its midst at that moment. It is what it is, and my usual desire is to find a dark place to hide from the cascading trauma.

Back at the cemetery, the offer for some time in the trunk of a limo seemed like a great option. The funeral director and I both both decided, though, to stay out in the sunlight with the bereaved. The best help we could give was to be present amid the chaos.

It's in those times of wanting to crawl into a trunk that I need to remember that Jesus is Immanuel ---- God with Us. He chooses to be fully present in all our circumstances. If I follow Him I'll end up being present in all kinds of situations, too.

So I have a choice. I can be present in people's lives or I can hide, be it in the trunk of a car or in a dark place deep inside myself somewhere.

Though the dark places sometimes seem most appealing, being present in and with the Light is where I am called to be.

Lord, help me overcome fears and inadequacies that I may stand firmly in Your presence and be fully present in the lives of others.