a new friend Bradley

I made a new friend at church on Saturday, his name is Bradley and I'd say he's about 8 years old, maybe 9. He's the cutest little boy, with dark hair and big brown eyes. I got to the service early to help set up and Bradley came up to me and Pattie, my church sponsor, eager to help do anything. We took to each other really quickly. Now each Saturday church service has a metaphor, and this past Saturday's was supposed to be the "brick wall tumbling down" because Jesus was resurrected. They had had a brick wall made of tissue boxes set up during the Lenten season. None of us could find the bricks and since no service would be complete without a metaphor, Bradley asked me to go on an adventure with him around the church to find them.

As we walked out the sanctuary he confided in me that he was happy I was coming with him because he was scared of the dark. He told me quite matter of factly that although he hadn't seen a lot of scary movies he'd heard about them and they were scary, especially Freddie and Chuckie. I told thim that normally when people stick together in those movies they are fine so we'd be fine - you know, we were comrades, nothing would happen. So we explored all over the church, in the dark places . . . opened scary doors, climbed over things (well he did) and we still could not find our metaphor.

We got back to the sanctuary right as the service started and we got separated. He went to sit with his dad and I sat with Pattie. We both passed out crosses during Communion - Pattie helped him and I helped his older brother. Anyway, the service was great and right when it was over I bent over to grab something and he was there in front of me and he gave me this huge hug and was all mournful and said "are you going to be here next Saturday because I'm going to be here next Saturday" and I was so sad because I wasn't going to be there this upcoming Saturday - friends are coming down and I am going to my brother's concert in Springfield that night - but for a few moments there I wanted to say "screw it" to all of that (no offense to said friends and brother) just so that I wouldn't have to disappoint this little guy. I told him that I'd definitely be back the Saturday after this one and he was like "well I don't know if I'll be here because I might be with my mommy that weekend" and I promised him profusely that he would see me soon, as I would be coming for the next month. Although when I thought that ,I felt a pang because I'm graduating soon. Man - I'd stay in Fredericksburg just for FUMC and the people there. I'm going to miss it so much.

Anyway, he wanted me to stay after the service later so I did, and we did a little bit more exploring but finally I gave him a hug and he was like "You know did you come here before?" and I was like "Yep, I've been coming to this service all year, I've seen you but we've never gotten a chance to talk" and he was like "wow yeah and we talked to today and now we are friends." And I said, "Yes, we are."