To My Sunday School Kids (2012)

So, when I first walked into that room this fall, and they told us that we were getting all of our old kids back, that they weren't mixing the groups up unless the kids decided to move themselves, I foolishly breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that this was going to be easy.

Somehow, I forgot that you were getting older. I forgot that your lives weren't standing still just because part of our small group was going to stay the same. And, then. Then, there were twenty-two of us on any given day, and it was all that I could do just to keep track of all of your faces, to make sure that there were enough chairs in the circle and that we never stopped moving for long enough for you to get in trouble. Just like last year, we danced with the crazy that was our group, and we danced hard. It was working, for awhile.

In some ways, it is still working. But, the dance is different. Every week we learn a new step. Every week you try not to laugh at me as I trip over my two left feet.

Last year, our fifth graders were playful, helpful, inquisitive, and occasionally far too old for what the curriculum was trying to teach them. They were learning this Jesus stuff for the first time, and they soaked it in like sponges.

But, you, my private school kids, and my ones who have been in Sunday school your entire lives, who know every nook and cranny of the church like the backs of your hands. You already know all of the answers. You block me with sarcasm when we try to hit on things that you don't want to share. But, when we get the dance right, you melt.

Maybe it's just my imagination that thinks that, last year, the dance was easier. Or, maybe it was. But, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

J*m** - I can't tell you how amazed I am by the way that you have grown this year. That smile that ws so rare? I easily see a dozen every Sunday. You've started getting snarky back at the other boys, and, the other week, you were the one to initiate a greeting when you passed me in the hallway. The fourth grade boys think that you all but walk on water. Have I mentioned how much happier you are this year? It really is amazing.

K*r*n - You weren't actually in my group last year (which, technically, meant that you should never have been mine this year either), but you've come in two feet first. You're happiest when we have all of "your kids" there, the ones that you watch over like a mother hen, and I love that your favorite thing to do is sit with M*dd** under the table and pray.

M*dd** "G" - I'm pretty sure that you are only here because your "little knuckle heads" adopted me last year (I'm also pretty sure that you're the only girl who could get away with calling them that). You roll your eyes at our crazy group, and the goofy songs, and the Bible stories that sometimes, oddly enough, are not. But, when the chance comes to pray, you've started to jump on it. I love watching you pray for your friends, because, really, that is the best way that you could possibly take care of them.

G*bby - My talkative one, who hates more than anything else to get in trouble, (how you survive our group, I am never sure) I am amazed by your memory and the way that you soak everything up, putting together this year and last year and loving both of them. You ask me every other week if I am coming up to middle school with you (the answer is still that I don't know). When you let go of the frustration, inhale, smile, and use some sort of "we" phrase about our group, I see Jesus in you.

(1/8 of the way through my roster, so... more to come.)