July 23, 2010

I stood in the back of the "Club Room" – a room configured for large groups at Quaker Ridge Camp in Woodland Park, Colorado – the room oozed with energy. I was a guest, a day visitor, an outsider, unknown to the young people that were focused forward.

Teenagers from Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, and Nebraska pooled their collective attention on four musicians that produced music that captured the rhythm, the quality, and the intent of this group of high school students. The place rocked. The kids cheered… and then, with lyrics prominently displayed in the front of the room, the band began to play, "How He Loves."

"Oh how He love us…"

My soul screamed even as my lips stayed sealed. I was there to watch. To listen.

Yes. Yes. Yes. A million times Yes… and then Yes again.

He loves us.

• A fourteen-year-old who thought she would find love if she gave her body and soul to an eighteen-year-old senior football star.
• A seventeen-year-old who is half man and half boy. Rigid and stoic, but craving genuine love and care… he gets neither in his fractured home.
• A thirteen-year-old acne-faced young man; he hangs onto the hem of the group he lusts to be a part of. He pretends; he hopes; but he’s alone… in spite of the crowd.
• An eighteen-year-old… no, THE 18-year-old. Cool personified. His secret seems safe. He’s in control of what’s going on. The drugs and alcohol are normal… a part of all of this.
• A sixteen-year-old who convinces herself that if she was just 10 pounds lighter…
• A fifteen-year-old honor student who has spent her life living up to every standard set in front of her… but now, especially now, she’s not sure who she is. What does she believe?

These kids… all of them… sang with unconstrained enthusiasm… "He love us…"

Yes. He does. Through the grace of Jesus… Yes.

Gilbert Hernandez… my friend and the usher of their souls… walked them beautifully and powerfully to the throne of grace… to the place reserved for them.

No pretence of love. No pre-qualification.

Under a ferocious mountain storm… grace poured like rain. Yes… He loves them.

My soul screamed.