Gem Mining Part One

 I spent last week leading worship at a children’s church camp. I’ve led worship for this camp for 14 of the past 15 years, and I’ve always considered it a blessing to be able to go. It’s a vacation for me…with the opportunity to do what I love to do best: plan and lead worship. 

Over the years, in addition to our Bible studies, campfires, and worship services, we’ve played in creeks, gone tubing, seen Horn in the West, visited Tweetsie Railroad, gone gem mining, and been banana-boating. When the group doesn’t go gem mining, I usually take an afternoon and go myself. This year was no exception…except in the experience that I had. 

Usually, when I go gem mining, I don’t get hurt. But this year, thanks to a staple in the wooden bench, I gashed my leg open and had to ask for the first-aid kit. I had orange clay all over my hands, but I did my best to clean the wound and bandage it. It wasn’t deep enough for stitches, but it was deep enough to bleed for a little while. So, for the rest of the experience at the gem mine, I was worried about my leg while sitting in disbelief that I was the only who had cut myself on the staples. I insisted that the workers do something about the staples before I left, and they did, but only after I asked three times. Needless to say, I didn’t have a very good time.

Nonetheless, I found a few gems. Not many. But enough to give to the campers when I got back to camp. 

I had planned to show them the uncut gems and connect them to our lives before we encounter the love of Christ and the redemptive work that follows. I had planned to explain how the gems are rough around the edges until they are cut and polished. I had planned to explain how the gems were beautiful in their very existence but they would be even more beautiful in the hands of a master crafts-person.

But then I cut my leg. 

I literally shed my blood while searching for the gems. 

And so I thought: These gems will not be worth much to the campers because they are so small and rough, but I hope that they will value them because of the intention behind them, the effort in finding them, and the blood shed in retrieving them. 

Friends: We are worth something in our very existence, in our being beloved children of God. But how much more is our value because of the intention of Jesus’ life, the effort he put in living it, and the blood he shed in dying?

I don’t know if the campers fully understood what I was trying to say when I presented them each with a small amethyst. But I know that they liked them. And I pray that when they look at them, they will find value in remembering where they came from and the Love that gave them. 

God: Help us to know and remember our worth and value in You. Always. Amen.