A Note

I recently started this little box that I keep at the church where kids can leave me notes. These can be comments, questions, prayer requests, really anything they want to tell me. I was sure to let them know that what they write to me isn't something that I am going to share with the other kids or their parents. It's really just meant to be a way for kids to share things with me in a space where they feel totally safe.

It is just a box. A plain cardboard box with a slit cut in it.

In the last two weeks I have gotten some really sweet notes from kids telling me that they had fun or what their favorite part of Kid's Worship is. I love reading them and it always makes me smile. There is one little girl who just leaves me notes with her name on them, because that is all that she knows how to spell.

It blows me away how much these amazing little kids just want to be connected to someone that loves them. Someone who isn't their parent or a family member. Someone that doesn't love them just because they are supposed to, but because they want to.

This morning when I got to the church I found a little piece of folded up paper in my box that I must have missed on Wednesday night. I unfolded it to read this...

I want to tell you that my Dad is not alive.

It was signed Love and then the girls name.

Wow.

I have developed a relationship with this little girl over the last couple of months since they started coming to church. I knew that her father was not living, but I don't know any of the details. I have never asked her about it because, honestly, when is the best time to bring something like that up.

For this little 5 year old girl, that is such a huge part of her story. The idea that she feels so loved and so safe in this space, safe enough to share that with me, means more than I have words for.

There is a reason why I spend my Saturdays in this building. There is a reason why I am here late at night during the week once my own kids have gone to bed. There is a reason why I would give my life for this church, not 5 or 10 years down the road when it is perfect, but today.

This morning I was reminded what that reason is.