Gum Girl

We started our second round of Journey classes at Granger Community Church (GCC) last night. We enrolled in Dr Bob's "Spiritual Practices: Prayer" class. The center auditorium was filled to the brim with people eager to absorb all that Dr Bob had to say about prayer.

In his unique, from the heart, amazing way, he captivated us with how we can learn to pray like Jesus and listen for his response. Despite how captured I was with all that Dr Bob had to say I was somewhat distracted at the same time.

Sitting in the row directly in front of us was a family that included a probably junior high age girl. A girl with gum. She also had a pen with a removable cap. The gum and pen became quite the focus of entertainment for her throughout the entire time Dr Bob spoke.



I first noticed the antics about 10 minutes into the session. She had removed the gum from her mouth and was wrapping it around the cap of the pen. The more she stretched the gum the more she was able to wrap around the cap of the pen. She finished the 'wrapping job' and the cap of the pen went into her mouth and back out. Minus the gum.

A few minutes later the gum was back out of mouth and she was rolling it between her fingers until it had be come like a short piece of thick string. Then she pushed it up into the cap of the pen, pulled it back out and popped it back into her mouth.

I don't know if it was her older sister sitting next to her or her mother, whichever, she did nothing. I saw this older person look over at here during the antics a couple of times and just laugh.

I, in the meanhwhile, I'm desperately trying to reel myself in and concentrate on what Dr Bob has to say but perpetually distracted by the "gum olympics" that were going on in front of me. Focus. Focus.

It wasn't long until the gum was out for another rousing round of 'twist around the outside of the cap' However, as instead of the cap being reinserted into her mouth, she meticulously rolled it off the end of the cap and popped the wad back into her mouth.

I managed to take my focus of the girl with the gum and returned my full attention to Dr Bob. I was feverishly taking notes when gum girl caught my attention again.

Apparently the gum was beginning to not come off the end of the cap to the pen so easily now. I notices that her index finger and thumb were now sticking together. Furthermore, she seemed to have this annoyed look on her face. She began to pick off the stick bits of gum from her fingers. I kept seeing her hand move towards her lap. I was mortified. Surely she isn't wiping her fingers on the chair! She repeated this process over and over.
I couldn't watch any more.

Dr Bob wrapped began to wrap things up and showed us some extend research we could to in our handout in regard to prayer through out the rest of the week. When we stood up to leave I couldn't help but to look at the chair in the row in front of me to see if it was covered in gum. It wasn't! God hears our prayers.