talking to myself.

somehow, whenever I endeavor to “teach” someone something, I always end up learning something myself.

My bi-monthly trip to Flipt was at 10:30 this morning. I got a rather disconcerting email from Angie, Flipt admin extraordinaire, on Friday informing me that one of the other Flipt leaders would be gone today and would I mind taking over the 4-5th graders or the K-1ers. For reasons unclear even to me, I forewent the “safe” choice of the familiar K-1 group and took up with a group of 9-11 year olds.

Now, this may not seem like an odd choice to anyone else, but for me it is. For some reason the moment a group of kids becomes “double digit aged” I lose my ability to communicate effectively. One on one I’m fine. I can ask the right questions and get answers about his/her likes and dislikes, their family, their friends and love them well. But in a group? My intricate knowledge of Hannah Montana and the Disney Channel is no longer impressive; my ignorance of Sponge Bob Squarepants and the newest pop hit is met with distain. But I decided on Friday to meet the challenge and face one of my fears:

Preteens or “tweens”

I stumbled through the opening session, helped immensely by my friend Heather. Worship and Large Group flew by and before I knew it 6 faces stared at me, waiting. Sans Heather, my feeble confidence wilted and I began my fall back strategy for dealing with nerves:

Babbling.

I started off using the curriculum-provided questions about shepherds and trust and felt ridiculously out of sync with my group. So I stopped, and read out loud from the verse, hoping against hope that something would penetrate my brain and help me teach these kiddos something, anything about this God who Loves them so.

Psalm 23:1 (I read from the New International Readers Version, because that’s the version of Bible we have in the Flipt room)

The Lord is my shepherd. He gives me everything I need.

I stopped. And asked allowed the question that reverberated in my mind…

“Do you guys believe that? That God really gives us everything we need? Not necessarily everything we want but everything we need?”

I got a few yes’, a couple of no’s, and pressed onward. Talking about the things we “need” vs. “want” like air and love and people and video games and ice cream. And while I’m unsure if any of it penetrated into the hearts and minds of the kiddos, it made me pause.

Do I believe this verse? That everything I need is provided for me?

I want to. I’m not quiet there yet. And while I still have more questions than answers, I’m learning trust and reverence and love. And that sometimes the person that really needs to learn the lesson, the verse, the story-is me.