On Thursday nights, my 12-year old daughter goes to a church near our house with many of her friends for worship and teaching. She looks forward to it each week and usually when she gets home, I hear stories of the fun she had running around the church and how she drank Mountain Dew. I always ask her about the teaching and the worship and she is very positive about that too, but usually wants to talk more about the interactions with her friends. Last night when she got home, I asked her how it went.
She said, "I cried. I mean, my insides were crying like a river." Surprised, I said, "Really, how come?" She explained that the teaching was about the crucifixion and that in the worship time, they sang the song "Jesus Paid It All." "It just really hit me," she said. Then, right there in the living room, she began singing in her sweet, little-girl voice: "Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow." She paused and smiled at me and then we sang together. I was pretty sure my heart would burst. But, just as quickly as she injected this life, she flitted off to do something in her room. Good thing, I needed time to recover.
A bit later, we sat in the living room and she was texting on her phone. A lot. Some anxiety rose up in me as I began thinking of several horror stories I'd heard recently about what a parent might find if she reads her kids' texts. I asked her who she was texting. "My friends." "What are you texting about?" "I don't remember what." Hmmm. When she went up to bed, I looked at her phone (I've been very clear that I will have unfettered access to her phone). There it was; a (relatively) long text she'd written to five of her friends:
Tonight I was reminded that Jesus paid it all for us. When I go to bed tonight, I will pray to thank God that he died to take away my sin and I will thank him for such good friends like you.
As if the singing in the living room had not been enough. This is a bold texting life.
