They came into the classroom, full of joy and smiles and LIFE. I looked into their eager faces and mentally reviewed my morning. It was going to be busy, to say the least. And lately, they’ve been so talkative. (Which I absolutely cannot resist. No matter how hard I try to stay on the subject, if I think there might be something one of them needs to say, or some sort of childish wisdom or insight, I cannot bear to shut it down.)
We gathered around the table, and sorted out the chairs and who got which one. There was an extra again this morning, so the routine of “who sits where and on which color chair” was disrupted a bit, but finally, everyone was settled and ready. A few months ago, as I was considering the whys and wherefores of Sunday School for these children, I realized that what was most important was that they have a sense of GOD in THIS PLACE, and so we’ve been talking about the fact that “God is here, in this classroom! He sees us and He loves us. He is our friend!” And we follow that by singing the old song that my first and second grade teacher, Sadie Bissey, taught us so long ago:
Into our class
Into our class
Come into our class, Lord Jesus
Come in today
Come in to stay
Come into our class, Lord Jesus
So, this morning, as we were sitting around the table, I asked them the question that I’ve been asking them over the last few months. “Who is here in our class this morning?” I asked them. “Who is right here with us today?”
“Jesus!” “God!” The answers chorused around the table.
“That’s right,” I smiled at them. “God is right here with us today.”
He was sitting at the end in his usual spot, and he looked around curiously. “He’s not here today!” He said with a note of disappointment.
“Ah, but He is!” I told him. “He’s right here with us! Even when you can’t see Him, God is with you. He’s here. He’s with you when you are in trouble. He’s with you when you have work to do and helps you.”
“We did lots of work,” he told me earnestly. “We had to to do really hard work pickin’ up stuff in the yard. And God didn’t help us at all!” He shook his little head sadly. He obviously had some feelings about this.
I pondered a bit and then suggested, “Maybe He did! Maybe you just didn’t realize –”
“Nope,” he said decisively. “He didn’t. We did it all by ourselves!”
Oh, Lord Jesus! How often have I been so sure that I was alone trying to do jobs that seemed big and hard? And when I got done, I was sure I had done it “all by myself” when, in fact, I was under the protective oversight of a loving parent, who enabled and gave strength and tempered the job to my abilities. Thank you for the reminder through one of my LITTLES that we don’t know the half of how your presence surrounds and enables and LOVES us in our “hard work” and never leaves us until the job is done.
Hebrews 13:5b-6a (NCV) “. . . God has said, ‘I will never leave you; I will never abandon you.’ So we can be sure when we say, ‘I will not be afraid because the LORD is my helper’. . .”
For this promise, for my LITTLES, for shelter on this stormy Delaware evening (and so much more!) my heart gives grateful praise.
Delaware Grammy 