“Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.” Psalm 8:2

Few people are more “ordinary” than 14-year-old boys. Distraction finds them. They leave their empty Gatorade bottles lying around the yard after playing basketball. They forget to put up their clothes and make their beds. 

Few people, however, are more extraordinary than 14-year-old boys. Recently a group spent the night at our home and joined us for Sunday school and worship the next day. 

With our PCUSA son was a Pentecostal, a Baptist, a Methodist, an ARP and a young man from a church without the word church in its name. Somehow in Sunday School we moved to the topic of the famous golfer Lee Trevino joking that not even God could hit a one iron. Then next week Trevino was caught in a lightening storm wishing he’d never opened his mouth. 

“You don’t mess with the wrath of God,” one of the young men said.

“I never understood that phrase,” said another.

“You know, wrath, W-R-A-T-H, like anger,” another explained.

“Wait, really? I always thought it was the RAFT of God.”

We all laughed, but it didn’t take us long to decide that we liked the concept of the “raft” of God much better. Considering God’s raft made us think of rescue and even fun and adventure (thank you, Mark Twain). It made us think of paddling together—the whole world, regardless of color, creed, nationality, religion, gender, etc.—all together on the same raft. All together on the same raft of God.

Yep. 14-year-old boys are ordinary... ordinary saints.

Prayer: 
Dear Lord, let us all be so ordinary and so saintly. Amen.

Jo Ann Mitchell Brasington

About the Contributor

A member of the First Presbyterian Church of Woodruff family, Jo Ann Mitchell Brasington works at Wofford College. She and her husband, Bill, director of the Adult Learning Center, have three children (Annie, Abbey and Daniel) and a new son-in-law (Blake).