sustained silent sunday school

The inevitable has occurred: I've finally gotten sick. The sleep deprivation, frequent contact with sniffly kids, and failure to drink the recommended eight 8-oz glasses of water per day has caused my immune system to finally crack. I'm spending the afternoon in bed sleeping, crocheting, reading, and drinking tea. I'm achy, my head is pounding, and my throat is an odd combination of phlegmy and scratchy. Gotta love it.

It's always amazing to me, however, how God picks the moments when we're at our worst to show us what He's capable of. One of my duties right now is to teach the middle school Sunday School class. I didn't have a great lesson planned this morning; all I really wanted to do was use my voice as little as possible and stay as far away from the kids as I could. So I printed off copies of Psalm 27 and handed them out along with a blank sheet of paper. I spaced the students out across the room and told them to read through the Psalm a couple of times, then take about a half an hour to respond to it. They could write, draw, whatever- as long as they were responding in some way to the Psalm.

After a half-hour of near-silence (which, I'm telling you, is quite amazing for this bunch), they returned to the circle and we shared what we did. I was completely blown away. One girl - a sixth grader - had gone through and highlighted the whole Psalm, color-coding it so that lines with a similar meaning had the same color. She then drew a picture, using the colors so that the elements of the picture corresponded to the elements in the Psalm. That's the kind of dissection that I did in my college classes. When I asked her about it, she said that was the first time she'd ever read anything that way. Another guy, a seventh-grader, drew a picture of David falling down towards his enemies, with God's hands in the middle waiting to catch him. He drew holes in God's hands to show that God is Jesus.

It was exciting to see their responses. The initial reaction - which I had expected - was one of confused skepticism. Did I really expect them to sit quietly for a whole half hour?! But by the end, they all came up with great stuff. I only told you about two of them, but the other kids had great drawings and writings, too. And they were all enthusiastic about sharing what they had come up with. I loved it. I handed them the page, stepped out of the way, and let God's word do its thing.

"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." -Hebrews 4:12, ESV