Thank You God, For giving us Food! (Superman melody)

This past week I volunteered for vacation Bible school at our church. It was a lot of fun and reaffirmed some of the very basics for me.

God's Word is True: The Bible is true. You either look at it as a story book of fables or you look at it as history. There are contradictions, a book that spans that amount of time is bound to have them as things change, but the core values are there and if you nickle and dime every detail, you won't get anything from the Bible. If you look for concepts and 'big picture' you see a book telling us to love each other, do our best to do what is right, and to love and trust God.

God's Word is Comforting: There are times when things are scary in the Bible. There's no way to sugar coat that some angry, jealous people nailed our savior to the cross and killed him. But the everlasting comfort and joy is also in the Bible if you look. Forgiveness, is there anything more comforting than knowing we are forgiven for our sins and slights?

God's Word is Surprising: It is. When we get complacent and expectant in life, it is God who shakes things up. Humans are creatures of habit, but God challenges us and loves us so much that even when there are trying times, there is joy in those times.

God's Word offers Forgiveness: Our snack for this day was very symbolic. The chocolate cookie on the bottom was our sin, dark and hard (tempting) There were bright red cherries for Jesus' blood shed for us and the third was whipped cream, white and fluffy and able to cover the other things like a cloud. Did the kids understand it? Kind of and that was enough at the time. Forgiveness can be simplified, but it's a complex idea and in our Savior's case, that forgiveness is layered and absolute and it's a-okay to compare it to cookies and cream as long as those cherries are still Christ's 'blood'.

So, over 100 kids got a dose of Christ, crafts, snacks, stories, and music. In my journey in Christianity I'm learning that it is important to give the kids the stories and present Christ how they can understand. They'll grow into adults one day and they'll question religion, but if they remember those times when people they loved and respected told them about Christ and God, then those opinions will matter more than any article or roommate's.