Praise Him!

These summer weeks go by so quickly, it's hard to take a step back and soak in God's blessings. But that's why I have this treasured journal, of course.

So Day 3 of Creative Arts Camp proved to be another terrific day. I had my doubts about how well I'd be able to function at first. I didn't fall asleep last night until around 3:00 in the morning and had to wake up at 7:00, only four hours of sleep. I have no idea why sleep didn't come, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to work my best as a result. You know what? Once I got to church and started my daily activities, loss of sleep was an afterthought. I knew God was giving me energy and strength all morning as I set things up, took children from place to place, sang along with them in music and movements class, and staged the next part of our drama. Looking back, I am astounded that I managed to keep going all day on just four hours of sleep and hardly any food in my stomach.

Now I hope that none of you reading this are going to follow my example. By all means, get a good night's sleep and eat your breakfast!! Any other night, I'd have slept reasonably well and had plenty of time to eat breakfast. But today I had to lean on God to give me the strength to function. Thank You, Lord.

Today's routine was a little different. On Sunday, the Creative Arts children will be putting on a special program for the evening worship service, in which they'll showcase all the things they've done and learned in the week. A piece from the arts and crafts, choir, movements, instruments, and drama will all be shown for their parents. So half of today's drama class was spent getting them ready for our portion of the program. I decided to use Psalm 150 and have the children do a dramatic reading of the verses. We have 13-15 kids, so each of them will get to read at least one verse, with a few of them doubling up, and they'll start and end it together with "Halleluia!" and "Praise the Lord!" I added hand motions because when I read this Psalm, it feels perfect for something like that. We had to recite it several times at the end of class because I really wanted them to get into it. I made it clear I wouldn't accept reading a verse in a robot voice without emotion. I wanted the words to leap off the page with excitement and passion. I wanted the kids to say those praises like they meant every word, like their hearts were behind it. So it took quite a few recitals before we really started to make some noise. By the end of the class, the kids were shouting the verses so loud and clear they could hear us all the way down the hall. Music to my ears and to God's ears, I'm sure. :)

Now excuse me while I try to catch up on sleep...

Song of the Day: Twila Paris - "He is Exalted"

Verse of the Day: "Praise the Lord. Praise God in His Sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens. Praise Him for His acts of power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness. Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise Him with the harp and lyre, praise Him with the tambourine and dancing, praise Him with the strings and flute, praise Him with the clash of cymbals, praise Him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord." - Psalm 150