The Truth

They were forced to take it down.  A school in our beautiful state was, last week, forced to remove a Bible verse from the walls of their gymnasium because some group in Wisconsin opposed it.  Did you know that Wisconsin is like 800 some odd miles from West Virginia?  Why couldn't they worry about their own school walls and let ours be?  Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to me.

 

We moved here from New England more than a few years ago now.  We went the homeschool route up there after hearing that a local elementary school could not even put up a Christmas tree.  Honestly, we did  not know what we would encounter here, but we tried public school that first year thinking that life might be a little bit different this far South.  We were very happy with the elementary school in general..and then we attended our first PTO meeting.

My breath was taken away for a moment when I heard someone say "We will start the meeting by turning it over to Pastor so and so for prayer."  What???? As if I hadn't already thought I had died and gone to heaven just by moving here, they were going PRAY, right there in the school cafeteria, in front of all those parents???

Volunteering in our little guys kindergarten class would soon become a joy of mine, and I remember feeling that same shocked feeling when his teacher called me up that winter and asked if I could come into her classroom and put her Christmas tree up for her!   Heck YES, I was all over that!

That summer we would attend our first pee-wee football game as we had signed our stocky little guy up to play.  We took our seats on the bleachers all ready to get going after the National Anthem was played, but then we heard the Area Directors voice over the intercom asking folks to bow their heads while he prayed. I soon learned I would never tire of that shocked feeling hitting me when I realized that people around here still pray....no matter where they are at.

I noticed more often than not after that when we would attend those pee-wee football games that coaches called their teams to the sidelines to pray together before the games began and it was  such an awesome sight to see.  One local team even had shirts made that said "Faith, Family, and Football".  Every time I saw one of those shirts I would wish it had been our team wearing them:) One year our son had a coach that didn't pray before games and it was with great pride  that one of my best friends, whose son played with mine, and I watched our boys huddle the team together and ask coach to pray before their game started!

Fast forward to four years later and our sons last year on the pee-wee league before he would move to middle school football.  It was almost time for The Yankee to head out again and he was one of their coaches. Some of the parents and the Area Director called a preacher in to pray for my husband from the announcers booth while the team saluted him and presented him with a football signed by all of the boys.  It would have been a special event no matter what, but I have a photo that my husband didn't know was being taken of him, head bowed, the boys all standing in front of him with bowed heads, football lights glaring above.  That photo will always be precious to me and, had our Area Director not been a man of faith, open to the ideas of the other parents who wanted to recognize God and The Yankee, that moment never would have been captured.

Our little ones have long since moved on to the middle school and though I slowly feel the weight of the worldliness closing in around us, even here in our little piece of Mayberry, the Christmas tree still stands each year right in the atrium entrance of the middle school for everyone to see. A dear friend of ours hosts the Fellowship of Christian Athletes every Wednesday morning, where, every student that so chooses has the freedom to go sit and listen about God and start their day out with prayer.

Our middle school and high schools are also home to the Souled Out event each year where tons of youth and their parents come on a weekend evening to worship and praise. Young Life is now in both of the high schools in this county and doing great.

Several weeks ago, we took our daughter to watch the local track meet.  We had never been to a track meet before and only attended because her two best friends are on the team and we wanted to support them.  I looked down on the field right before the meet started just in time to catch this scene.

 

These kids are not discussing track strategy folks, these kids are praying.

 But in all honestly, do you know what?  I am scared right now...scared that, just by posting this blog, and shining a light on what is true, what is RIGHT, and what is still GOOD in this world, some people from Wisconsin are going to somehow swoop in and steal it all away from us.  And we shouldn't have to feel that way in a country that was created to be "One nation under God'.  In a country who originally created a public school system with Bibles in it....how have we strayed so far?  How have we sat back and allowed it to be taken so far from what was originally planned for us?