This past week, I played the part of Mary, the mother of Jesus, at our church’s Vacation Bible School program. Everyday I told the children a story of Jesus from Mary’s perspective. The birth of God’s son, from far-away Magi bringing gifts, an escape to Egypt, encountering old prophets in the temple, loosing a boy Jesus at Passover and that first water-to-wine miracle at a wedding.

I went to sleep every night with thoughts of how I would tell these stories, getting the words exactly right for the kids. Working into the narrative exactly how I would ask the children questions to pull them along into this imaginary world of ancient Nazareth. We had a script, but I tweaked most of it to fit the needs of our program, taking up a good deal of my mental energy.

Friends, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself more at Vacation Bible School.

Some days I felt I really nailed the story. I remembered everything I wanted to say (I memorized as much as I could, only going up on stage with an index card of key points.) I’ve done little skits and and plays at church before, but nothing like this. Few props, only one other character who popped out at the very end for me to interact with.

Basically, it was just me as Mary with the job of communicating a story. Each morning a monologue.

For the first time – and this is the part I want to express most of all – people came up to me to say how they enjoyed something creative I had done. On Monday, a church elder stopped me as I left the stage to give me a kiss on the cheek and words of well done. All week I heard pretty much the same thing. I think someone may have said “anointed”. I even got a, “Wow, Monica, you have found your niche!”

Never in all my years as a volunteer in ministry has anything like that happened before. I can’t ever recall a time when people expressed strong feelings of “Hey, you do that really well!” to me about anything.

Can I tell you all this without it sounding like I’m bragging? I hope so. I know where I made mistakes and fumbled a bit for the correct part of the words to come out. There were a couple of days when I came away from the children kicking myself for forgetting a part of the story. I wished a few times that I had more than one opportunity to present each story so I had time to get it right with more emotion and better expression.

But it was fun. Even with all the work, memorization, tweaking the script, nervous energy before the performance, it was a LOT of fun. And the children! Sometimes antsy, often distracted, they were engaged and wanting to hear what Mary had to say. I even had one young girl with her Bible open on her lap to show me where exactly she could read the story for herself.

Isn’t that neat?

So, that’s what I learned about myself this past week. It seems I have a knack for oral storytelling.

Dare I say it’s a gift? I would certainly like to think it is.

Another thought: Could it be that my love for writing, especially true-life stories, is directly related to a gift of storytelling?

This past week has given me a lot to think about. Just like Mary pondered all those stories about Jesus in her heart, I’ve now got something to think about too. Like . . . now what do I do with this gift?

Thoughts?