It's just one of those sundress-red-shoe-wearin' kinda days! (I even spiced things up with a little blue nail polish!)  #enjoyingthelittlethingsinlife

"Hey Angel, how were the holidays for you?" I inquired of a sturdy fifth grader just stepping into the classroom after the Christmas/New Year's break.

"It was pretty good," was the cryptic answer.

Steadying my gaze on this disheveled young man, I prodded, "Do anything special?"

"Not really. Just watched my friends get drunk," he honestly replied.

"Get drunk? Were these older friends of yours?" Remembering that he had an older brother that was in and out of the juvenile correction system.

"Naw, just these eight, nine, ten and eleven year olds. They were drinking to get drunk, " he confessed as his eyes dropped their gaze from mine. "But, I didn't drink with them. I told them that it was stupid, " he quickly clarified.

As Angel caught sight of a friend and walked off I was left standing there, trying to process what I had  just heard. Eight, nine, ten and eleven year olds drinking to get drunk?! I knew kids in this neighborhood had to grow up fast...but really? A wave of sadness swept over me as I scanned the classroom, wondering what these children, all 35-40 of them were going home to that day.

Whether we acknowledge it or not this is the grim reality for many children in our communities. In the midst of the hurt there are people reaching out to bring the message of hope and truth to these young lives.

Child Evangelism Fellowship is one such group that is endeavoring to impact kids with the gospel. Thankfully, they are allowed to provide an after-school program called Good News Club to schools throughout the county. Run by volunteers on a weekly basis, they reach out to kids in your backyard through songs, games and poignant Bible lessons. {See pictures from the club I volunteered with this past school year.}

Unfortunately, these efforts often are hindered by the lack of volunteers. The club that Angel attended this past school year is waiting to begin again but can't because it doesn't have enough volunteers... yet. Would you prayerfully consider lending a hand? These Good News Clubs throughout Pinellas county are seeking people willing to invest in these children's lives for the gospel. Teaching a Bible lesson or a memory verse is not mandatory. Getting to know the kids and share the love of Christ with them is priority.

It makes a difference. An eternal difference.

Contact me for information on where you can find a club in your immediate area.

The Book of Life

A devotional from Music for the Soul by Alexander Maclaren...

"A book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name." Mal. 3:16

"The "Book of Life," it is called in the New Testament. Its designation in the Old might as well be translated "the book of living" as the "book of life." It is a register of the men who are truly alive.

Now, that is but an imaginative way of putting the common place of the New Testament, that anything which is worth calling life comes to us, not by creation or physical generation, but by being born again through faith in Jesus Christ, and by receiving into our else dead spirits the life which He bestows upon all them that trust Him. In the New Testament "life" is far more than "being"; far more than physical existence; removed by a whole world from these lower conceptions, and finding its complete explanation only in the fact that the soul which is knit to God by conscious surrender, love, aspiration, and obedience, is the only soul that really lives. All else is death - death! He "that liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth" [1 Tim. 5:6]...In spite of all the feverish activities, the manifold vitalities, of practical and intellectual life in the world, the deepest, truest life of every man who is parted from God by alienation of will, by indifference, and neglect of love, lies sheeted and sepulchered in the depths of his own heart. Brother, there is no life worth calling life, none to which that august name can without degradation be applied except the complete life of body, soul, and spirit in lowly obedience to God in Christ. The deepest meaning of the work of the Savior is that He comes into a dead world, and breathes into the bones - very many and very dry - the breath of His own life. Christ has died for us; Christ will live in us if we will; and, unless He does, we are twice dead.

Do not put away that thought as if it were a mere pulpit metaphor. It is a metaphor, but yet in the metaphor there lies this deepest truth, which concerns us all, that only he is truly himself, and lives the highest, best, and noblest life that is possible for him who is united to Jesus Christ, and drawing from Christ his own life. "He that hath the Son hath life: he that hath not the Son hath not life" [1John 5:12]. Either my name and yours are written in the Book of Life, or they are written in the register of a cemetery. We have to make our choice which."

Is your name written in the Book of Life?