Leading up to RFKC this year I picked up "Father Fiction" by Donald Miller. I haven't finished the book but I have one line that rocked my world already.
"The sad thing is, as a kid, I wondered why I couldn't have a dragon, but I never wondered why I didn't have a father."
It makes one wonder if these kids, that we are giving a week of love to, go through similar thoughts. Somehow I think they go through worse. Children are supposed to wonder about ridiculous things. I can remember wanting to be a knight, or wanting to be able to use magic... and, I still want to fly some day. Having an imagination, creating and believing in that which is not of this world is what being is all about.
A few weeks earlier I had, had the thought of, "How can one have a childlike faith, when one didn't have a childhood?" Jesus asked us to have childlike faith, and I know he knew about the orphans. But it still leaves me to ask that question. I had a childhood; one full of wonder and imagination, free of the weight of the world.
Yet we are amazing being, we humans, especially children. I have gone to camp the prior three years. I have seen our 'best' and 'worst' kids. I have seen how, given the opportunity, they become nothing more than kids. I have seen them open up and look at me, hope filling their eyes, looking for answers to the tough questions. You give them what you can, and put the rest before the Lord. Hope, faith, and prayer are the only ways I have to be able to go through the rest of my year; and not be consumed by my concern and compassion for these kids.
Neight
A/V, Photographer
