Play-Doh...

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" -Romans 8:38-39

"And when each of us looks back at all the turns and folds God has allowed in our lives, I don't think it looks like a series of folded-over mistakes and do-overs that have shaped our lives. Instead, I think we'll conclude in the end that maybe we're all a little like human origami and the more creases we have, the better." -Bob Goff, Love Does

This past week I was Tahlequah, Oklahoma with 15 of the high schoolers from FUMC for a mission trip. We dug ditches. We played with kids on the autism spectrum. We jumped off of cliffs and rafted down rivers. We laughed. We cried. We sweat.

And in all of it, God was doing some big, big things. I've truly still been unable to fully wrap my head around everything that happened this week. Something tells me I likely won't be able to express it all in words any time soon.


I spent my days back at the United Methodist children's home where our group was based working with our youth that volunteered to help at Camp Grey Squirrel. Grey Squirrel is a summer day camp for kids with autism or Asperger's syndrome. The teens in our group had the option of helping at Camp or going out to a backwoods bible camp and getting their hands seriously dirty with some painting and ditch digging and conduit laying (and let me tell you, the bunch that went our there came back EXHAUSTED.)

One of the things the campers at Grey Squirrel loved doing was playing with Play Doh, and by playing with Play Doh, I mean taking six different colors of Play Doh and mixing them all together to get one big glob of puke colored dough. (It's really funny how things don't change in 25 years.)

When the week was done for the campers on Wednesday the camp director offered me a container of this material that resembled toxic waste that had been sitting in a refrigerator for two months. As you can probably imagine, I gladly accepted and stuck it in my backpack for safe keeping, because you never know when toxic waste colored Play Doh might come in handy!

That night at worship, the message really revolved around sin. The thrust was that we all needed to rid ourselves of the things we do that keep us from being close to God as the things that God detests. It was a message of guilt. The call was to be ashamed of all of the mess-ups in our lives. It seemed like if we sinned we couldn't love God so if we just stopped sinning, it would all be better.

As it was going on I reached in my backpack for my journal and my hand came across the little plastic container of Play Doh. I was reminded of the story of how Play Doh came to be.

Originally created in 1927 by Cleo and Noah McVicker as a wallpaper cleaner to remove coal residue from wallpaper, the market eventually disappeared as coal in homes slowly went out of favor. Struggling to continue the business, the brothers were nearly out of ideas.

But in 1955, Kay Zufall, the sister-in-law of Cleo's son and an elementary school teacher, got a batch of the dough after hearing it made a good craft to make Christmas ornaments. However, instead of making ornaments, her kids loved molding the dough and playing with it. After asking for more, the company had a brilliant idea. They removed any toxic materials from the dough, added colors, and began to market it as a toy: PLAY DOH!

This antiquated cleaning supply was nearly dispatched and left behind and the company that made it nearly went under. But all it took was somebody looking at it from a little different angle and making a minor adjustment to see how valuable this simple dough could really be! How depressing would childhood have been without that colorful dough to mix together and roll into snakes?!

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the truest image of God we have is that of the father in the story Jesus tells of the son who runs away. Taking his inheritance early, the son runs off and blows it all on every kind of pleasure. Coming to the end of his rope and having no other options but starvation, he slowly makes his way home, ashamed, embarrassed, and with nothing to his name. He's a vagrant who has seemingly exhausted all the goodwill his father might have for him.

And yet, as he walks up the road to his father's house, there is Dad running down the driveway to embrace him. The way the story tells it, as the father looked out, he saw his son returning and ran to him. I LOVE this image. I get the idea that he probably stood there on the porch each and every morning hoping against hope that his son would return. And when they meet on the road, I imagine he gave his son the biggest bear hug and in between tears whispered in his ear, "Welcome home buddy."

I can't find a more beautiful picture of what God is like in all the bible than the father who is waiting on the porch to whisper to us, "Welcome home my beloved child." We are not perfect children. We wonder after temporary thrills and pleasures hoping they will fill us and sustain us and complete us. But the story of God is not of one who stands above us counting our imperfections and listing our missteps.

Rather, I'm more convinced by the day that God is the one desperately waiting for us to come home so that he can lavish us with love. There is nothing in us that would cause God to ever look at us and dismiss us. Nothing you have ever done, no story your life has ever told, has diminished the adoration and intense affection God has for you. Instead, I'm more convinced than ever that we are like Play Doh, and that just when we become convinced that our value couldn't be less and we're ready to give up, God reminds us that we are valuable beyond measure, simply because we are made in his image. Sometimes we just need a new start. Sometimes we just need someone to whisper, "Welcome Home."

forever unfinished...