Church camp!!

Sunday night, 1:10am. T-minus seven hours and fifty minutes until I get to leave for church camp. AHHHH!!! Church camp is the best! I look forward to seeing all of the kids, watching their little minds learn about this awesome Jesus that loves them so much, and eating smores around a campfire while I eat foods that no sensible adult should ever touch. And the snack shack. Oh, thank you, Jesus, the snack shack. 

So why am I sitting in the ER at this time? As fate might have it, I am looking at a big ugly diagnosis of strep with the following companion of a shot in my rump to fix the problem. Okay, no big deal. Church camp is tomorrow and this lady says I am good to go, so off I go! I get home in record time and fall asleep with a smile on my face knowing that tomorrow will bring so much goodness. 

There's only one thing. Just because that ER nurse said I was good to go doesn't mean that my body agreed. About two hours into the morning on the first day, my head starts to pound. My throat is on fire. My fever spikes every 3 hours and 45 minutes so I am eating Ibuprofen like they are M&M's. This first day will be the hardest and the rest of the week will be great! Or not. I carry on this way for the next few days, having times where I feel much better and am convinced I am on the uphill climb, only to feel my teeth chatter when the fever spikes once again. I enjoy the moments I can and rejoice through sick eyes at the fun taking place all around me. Good memories are happening, but I spend much of my time thinking about what it would be like to lay down in my very own bed. 

Today arrived and I am sad that it is time to go home. I think about the new little kids I got to meet and promise myself that I will remember their names for next year. I think about what kinds of backgrounds that some of them have and wonder what kinds of homes they will be returning to. I know most of the kids that came with my church, but there were over 300 hundred kids each with his or her own story. Did I aid in pouring into them during their time spent at camp, or did they see the sick,  crabby side of me? God, I ask your grace to go before me if I spoke from a place that was more human and less of you. I pray that I didn't, in all of my sickly crabbiness, that their main take away from their church camp experience is you.

We pull into the church parking lot to return kids to parents so that they can tell them all about the fun time they had at camp. I load up two people's worth of luggage into my car (mine and Paxton's) and finally am on the road to my own home, my own bed, my own medicine, my refuge. I unload everything and just as I can see the end in sight, hear the voice of my teenage son say, " Mama, I am really hot." Mama instincts kick in and before I know it I am touching foreheads in search of a fever, only to discover that the heat he is feeling is due to an issue with the central AC. What I thought was going to be bedtime now turned into an impromptu trip to the pool so that everyone could jump inside and not overheat. We make it back home just in time to hear the words "You have to leave it off for a few hours while it thaws." Yeah, so great. Who needed that bed? Who needed those meds? Who needed to sleep for about 16 hours to get back into a normal functioning mode? Apparently, it would have to wait. 

My gosh, what a pity party. I think about the kids from camp and what going home might feel like for some of them. For the little girls whose home is not a safe haven like mine is. For the little boy who doesn't know who will celebrate his decision to follow Jesus for the first time at home the way he was celebrated at camp. Or for the staff member who pours herself out year after year for the kids that pass through the craft hall yet will return to an empty home this time due to the recent loss of her husband.  I know Jesus came back to save us all, but I pray that those are the ones that he is especially close to as they go home. 

With or without their sickness. With or without their air-conditioned home. With or without their exhaustion. I pray that Jesus was waiting for them all at the front door the minute they walked inside. Would you pray for them? 

Miracles on stage

I applaud you, Sunshine Academy. Here's why.

Rewind two years ago.  There was this precious little girl who (in my opinion) totally stole the show. It was our sweet Piper girl, and life pre-cancer was busy for our little performer. The following year, I had been invited back to the show to see a little girl in my Sunday school class perform. I found myself distracted by the thought of wondering when or if I would see Piper grace the stage with her presence again. I ran to the foot of the cross time and time again, reciting Isaiah 40:31 over Piper's life. That she would run and not grow weary; walk and not faint; soar high on wings like eagles.

Before I became an urban missionary, I worked for five years with special needs kids. I loved it, too. From babies that were born at 24 weeks and spent the first few months of life in the hospital before they were taken home by their parents; to children diagnosed with a low-functioning autism diagnosis and getting ready for kindergarten: I was blessed to play even the smallest part of a support for them and their families. And I prayed. My goodness did I pray. For their survival, for their development, for their cure, for the words I believed they would one day utter: I prayed.

When Piper was being born, I set an alarm to wake me up every hour while my sister-in-law was in labor so that I could cover her entry into this world with prayers of safety for both her and mama. What I am so happy to see now is that those prayers have not expired, and I believe that God still intercedes on her behalf, cancer or no cancer.

When Arellia announced a few weeks ago that Piper was going to be in a performance, I jumped for joy! Look at God, I thought. I forgot about those prayers, but he had not. It is funny how a desperate prayer said one year prior had been lost in my memory bank, yet not lost on God. The show would go on, and so would our Piper girl. It was the group that she performed with that caused these eyes to weep.

Of the eight children that performed that night, five of them had been covered in my prayers at one point during their life. The little girl whose heart had been operated on more times that anyone else I had ever heard of; the little girl whose smile far exceeded the attention her wheelchair brought her; the little boy who stole my heart at Sallie Cone and his little sister, too. And of course, our Piper girl. All of these children with different diagnoses and accompanying prayers. The show was amazing and God allowed me to see that He had heard my prayers for each child and was showcasing it right before my eyes.

At the end of the song, the performers huddled into a circle facing inward.  It was then that a precious little girl was lifted high from within them, and the realization that Piper was "flying high on wings like eagles" was being displayed from an ever-present God whose timing in all things is always perfect.

Please consider to #prayforpiper.