005. out of the mouth of babes

I am a pre-school teacher.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Miss Julia and I spend a little over four hours with ten beautiful three-year-olds.  While most kids in the program are members of local churches, we also have community children – that is, unaffiliated with the nearby “churches of Christ.”

One little girl this year, Molly, is new to the program.  Her grandmother (“Mimi”) picks her up and drops her off, and we’ve been told that she is the only one allowed to pick her up each day.  I would assume that she has sole custody, and that Molly has had a less-than-stable family life up until now.  I say this because, for the first three weeks, she would scream and cry when Mimi would leave her each morning.  She sit in my lap, sobbing, for about ten minutes (or however long it took me to distract her with a puzzle).  But this morning, although she came in clinging to Mimi, she acclimated rather quickly.  Mimi stayed long enough to help her with one puzzle, then was able to slip out the door.  Molly was great the rest of the day.

After lunch, we came back to the classroom for show-and-tell (this week’s letter is D, so we had an assortment of dolls and dogs, as well as a dinosaur and a drum).  When Landon decided not to share his drum with anyone and a general feeling of injustice settled over the others, we got out the play-doh.  I sat by Molly, helping her with her (old and crumbling) yellow glob – I eventually swiped a bit of Landon’s, as his was bright red and just the right consistency.

Molly had me be “the mommy” and she was “the daughter,” and I was to make her a waffle.  After we’d done that a couple of times, I rolled the play-doh into a ball and squished it into the lid – which has the little Play-Doh logo on it.  Molly must never have seen play-doh imprints before, because she was amazed.  When I handed it to her, she stared at it, then looked at me and said,

You are the greatest teacher in the world!

and threw her arms around my neck.   I caught Miss Julia’s eye, and she gave me a thumbs up.  Molly had made my day, possibly my week.

I never cease to be amazed by a child’s capacity for unconditional love and trust.  How is it that they are losing it younger and younger in life?  And how much are we adults contributing to their premature wisdom and cynicism?  It’s days like today that remind me just how responsible we are for raising these children with a sense of security and trust, and just how much we can learn from them if we would only take the time.

I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.