Floored...

I'm not a very emotional person by the worlds standards. I've never cried watching a movie. I don't cry at weddings. I didn't even tear up when I read Where the Red Fern Grows. The way I experience emotions is more like getting kicked in the stomach--having the wind knocked out of me.

You may be asking, why is Isaac writing about this? And that is a good question. Because I will tell you. Now.

As many of you know, I lead Wyldlife. For those of you who don't, it is a Christian ministry that seeks to introduce middle schoolers to Jesus Christ and help them grow in their faith. By "leading" Wyldlife, I am in essence a leader at a middle school. I help organize events, hang with kids, but most importantly, share Christ with them.

Anyway, this week is our summer camp trip. I sadly couldn't go this year because of numbers, but, I went down yesterday to catch up with some of the guys who went with our other guy leader, Micah. Yesterday, the camp speaker presents the kids with a problem. A big problem. He lays out the problem of sin. He explains to them what sin is and how it differs from sins. He explains how there is absolutely nothing we can do to fix this problem. We've made our own choice to go astray and do the things we want to do.

It hurts to hear this message, but seeing kids begin to open up... to think about their own lives... to think about how there is something greater than girls, clothes, sports, school... is simply amazing.

After the talk last night, I headed back to the cabin that the guys from my school are staying in for "cabin time". It is essentially a leader-led time where we all sit on the floor and process what was just talked about. If you know anything about middle school kids, boys in particular, they have an attention span of 2 seconds, so cabin time can often be an adventure. However, last night was different. The guys were thinking, sharing about their lives, asking questions.

The thing that really got me was what one kid said. He hadn't spoken the whole 30 minutes we'd been talking, but he raised his hand and said, "We are like a work of art... like the Statue of Libery... when it was first made it was bright and shiny copper, but it quickly became tarnished and turned green. It was still the original creation, but something had changed... it wasn't perfect anymore."

I was floored. The wind was knocked right out of me. If I cried normally, queue up the tear factory. This kid, probably 12 years old, just made a brilliant comparison. I don't know if he's following Christ, I just met him yesterday, but that analogy struck me.

We are still the beautiful creation that God made us to be; however, something has happened. Something that can't be reversed. We've all become tarnished. Imperfect. Sin. The Statue of Liberty itself cannot clean off the tarnish, the imperfection. We are the same way. We cannot clean off our sin. Only our creator can.

Today the kids hear about the cross, about Jesus, that he did what we cannot do. It's the best day of the week. It's the best day of their lives.