I guess God’s love is some-times messy! I often think about God as a force to make things right in my life, a force to point me in the right direction, put my priorities back in the right order, give me a clean heart. As I was cleaning up after VBS this year however, I couldn’t help thinking that I was wiping away all of the evidence of an amazing week just brimming with God’s love and lessons.

We even swept away the beautifully scribbled thank you poster from the pre-school children and the thank you notes that contained messages about the bible and our beautiful ―Baptist Church.‖
I get it. Vacation Bible School is an overwhelming, loud, messy, expensive, time con-suming and exhausting ven-ture. And to be honest, I would find the energy to jump for joy if I didn’t have to do ANY clean-up at all, but I know that is not the right thing to do. However, in the quietness of the clean-up, I found myself reflecting on the week and its events. I
realized that even though I know our church building needs to get back to business as usual, I don’t want “business as usual” to park itself in my heart until next year’s VBS. I want to stay wrapped in His blanket of Love. I want to physi-cally feel the act of forgiveness and second chances. I want the words that I speak to be guided by the Holy Spirit. I want to know what it is to be thankful for the littlest things and to be generous, no matter how much I have. When confronted with 160 children and teenagers and 20 or so adults from different backgrounds these are the les-sons, the negotiations of the heart that happen all around the
church during the week of VBS each year. Some work them-selves out seamlessly and oth-ers are a little more messy but it is clear that God’s love and the Holy Spirit are working. I understand that leaving a poster or flag hanging on the wall is not going to share the messages of love, forgiveness and, yes, hope that we experi-enced during our VBS week but it is my hope that every person who enters our building can hear the faint echoes of the praising, and that their hearts will be filled with the love that spilled over and was never mopped up.
Submitted by Annie T.

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