“Is this about bullying?” Cyrus pointed to one of the quotes – a question an adult had asked Akiane:

“You call Jesus the ‘Prince of Peace’ yet in His name, so many people were massacred. How do you explain that?”

Cyrus read through Akiane’s answer:

“Jesus is peace, just like calm water. But anyone can drop a stone into water and make it muddy.”

After a few minutes of contemplation, he spoke up again, “I think I understand. People cause pain like muddy water but the Holy Spirit is like water that can cleanse everyone.”

Later, Cyrus shared more about how Akiane’s answer to the difficult question impacted him. “It made me think of when Jesus started flipping tables because people were making his church into a store. The point isn’t that Jesus’s pool becomes muddy, our pool does. I know people who have had bad things happen, but they never get clean.”

“We both felt like Akiane’s answers on the Prodigy Wall were deep.” April went on to explain that as a creative writer, she felt especially drawn to Akiane’s words and poems. “Her quotes helped me understand her process. She could paint it, but she could also say it. I could almost see her writing things in a notebook as a child…like her poem, ‘A Conversation with God,’ or her thoughts about the many questions she was asked. It was very meaningful.”