"There's Gonna Be a Floody, Floody"

It seems to have been raining forever. As I drove to Church last Sunday morning, I found myself humming that old camp favorite, "The Lord said to Noah 'There's gonna be a floody, floody." I first sang that song at vacation Bible School too many moons ago to mention, but prompted by circumstance, it sprang unbidden to the forefront of my consciousness.

I continued to hum it as I set up Church School snack and made classrooms ready. When Kim Lysaght arrived before Children's Chapel, I mentioned that I had been singing it and with a laugh, she pulled the lyrics from her music bag and said, "I thought it might be fun to sing with the kids this morning." She was right.

I watched Kim's face as she introduced the song to the children and told them that she had sung it when she was a girl. You could see the joy that the memory gave her and the delight she took in sharing it with a new group of children. Kim and I sang and laughed as we watched yet another generation learn "So, rise and shine and give God your glory, glory."

It was a small moment in a very busy Sunday, but these kinds of moments are the things faith is made of. As parents and faith educators, we never know just what of all the many things we say and do our children absorb and remember. But those small moments are stored in the hearts and souls of our children, ready to spring out - unbidden - when something triggers the memory. In my case, it was several days of rain. But there have been times of crisis in my life when a distant memory of something I learned in Church School or a bit of a hymn I sung in the Junior Choir years ago filled my heart and sustained me in a difficult moment. God became real and present because of the love and faith poured into the foundation of my soul as a child.

This is why faith development matters. It is never about whether or not a child can recite the Tne Commandments or the Lord's Prayer - although those are good things to learn. It is about the truth of God's love and grace woven into the very fiber of our souls as we grow and mature. Sometimes, it seems as though those seeds lie dormant forever, but in God's time, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, that grace bursts into flower in the moments when we need it most.
So today I give thanks for all of those who so graciously share the faith memories of what they have been given with the next generation of Christians, not just here at Christ Church, but around the world. Just like the rain, each small gift of faith is a drop in the bucket, but the entire bucket overflows into the world and makes visible the love of God. Pretty amazing stuff!

Faithfully,

Elizabeth

P.S. I am moving on to the last verse of the song in the hope that it is prophecy, "The sun came out and dried out the landy, landy . . ."