Notice God in the Ordinary

Tonight at GEMS I led a devotional about Noticing God in the Ordinary, the last discipline in our PASSION acronym that helps fuel the fire in our hearts for God. I used the Object Lesson book that GEMS publishes every year that coordinates with the theme, and combined it with some materials from the "Threading the Theme Throughout the Year" workshop. I showed the girls some animal tracks and we talked about how even though we can't see the animals, we can see where they were by the tracks and signs that they leave behind. We talked about signs that the girls themselves leave behind so that their mom knows they've been there..clothes left on the bathroom floor after their shower, mud tracked in from the farm in the back hallway, etc. We also talked about other, non-physical signs, that they might leave behind...such as their kindness towards a mean girl at school, etc. Then we talked about how God gives us signs that He is there, so that even though we can't see Him physically, we can know for certain that He is with us. We mentioned the Bible...nature...kindnesses of strangers...all sorts of things.

I then gave each girl a cut-out shape of a highway road sign and asked them to write in some way that they have "Noticed God in the Ordinary" - a sign of God's presence to them. It was amazing. It was humbling. It was a blessing to read what all the girls wrote. Girls wrote about when someone from church brought them a meal, the sunset, the frost crystals they saw this morning, answered prayer, their mom's life changing for the better because of God...all kinds of things.

The most touching for me was what my 10 year old daughter wrote. She wrote a couple things, but one was "When my teacher called to see if I was okay." She had had a rough day at school. Her teacher had noticed. And my daughter noticed that her teacher noticed. And that was a sign of God's presence to her. How thankful I am for that teacher. And how humbled I am to be reminded that those girls (both my daughters and my GEMS) are watching. They are watching me in order to notice God.

Oh Lord, that I might be a sign of your presence to a child. I am not worthy. It must all come from You.