'Graduation'

For Sunday School this week, we "graduated"our fifth graders out of the children's wing. Next week, they'll be off to the fellowship hall to join in with middle school Sunday school. Some of the kids are ridiculously excited about it. Most of mine...not so much.

I'm more than sure that they will sort through the transition and figure out that it is not as terrifying as they think it is, but, for this week, they were not the world's happiest campers. (Actually, I've never had a small group less excited about moving up to the next grade.)

All morning, one of my boys hovered within inches of my hand and asked me, "If we don't do x, will we not be able to move up?" "If we lose at y, will we flunk fifth grade Sunday school and have to stay here?" "What  if I just come and hide behind the chairs every week?" "If I do z, will I have to stay with you?"

Seriously, kiddo, you're supposed to want to leave, not want to stay. He tried x, y, and z, and still ended up with a graduation certificate - much to his disappointment - which he immediately proceeded to poke, crumple, rip, and crease to death, anything to make it disappear. If you don't have a diploma, you haven't really graduated, right?

I could have gotten annoyed by the fact that he was 'destroying' something 'special' that he had just been given, but, if God has drilled anything into my head through these kids it is that: behaviors are communication. Behaviors are communication. Behaviors are communication.

In fifth grade boy land, there are no appropriate (cool) words for, "I feel safe here, and I know that you love us. And, I'm scared to start trusting all over with a new leader." So, we poke our paper until Jessica moves close enough to take the pencil out of our hand and then stays there, close enough that, if we really needed to, we could hold onto her - not that we ever would. And, that's okay.

(One of the girls attempted to follow suit in the paper department, but without quite the same level of angst. She saved most of her button pushing - literally pushing buttons on the copy machine that is-not-to-be-touched - until the very final seconds of group, one last check to make sure that I really loved them and wasn't just counting down the seconds until they were gone.)

Another of my boys has been in my small group for kindergarten, fourth, and fifth grade. (Two of my boys, actually, but only one was here this week.) He's always been one of my quietest kids - although he's begun to develop a sarcastic side over the last six months or so - and has never once verbalized any hint of fear or sadness about the transition. Nothing.

Everything we did today was large group, but I caught his gaze at one point, having just answered another set of, "If we get this wrong, do we flunk?" from Boy A. Those dark, quiet eyes that I am always trying to get a smile out of, were filled up with tears. 

Not one of them escaped. But, in three years, those were the only tears I have ever seen. 

Nothing quite like making an eleven-year-old boy cry to make you feel like a jerk. :/

I must have answered a dozen questions of, "Why can't you be our leader next year too?" from the kids (mainly girls) who had the words - partially - to communicate with. In between, they all continued the habit that has been growing over the last month or so of, "Do you remember when....?"

"Do you remember when we made sling shots and shot bark?"
"Do you remember when I cut my finger on that grass?"
"Do you remember when M*t** wore the man skirt?"
"Do you remember when we had a donut fight?"
"Do you remember when we prayed under the table?"
"Do you remember when...?"

I almost think they could have told you something that we did each individual Sunday for the past two years!

There's no guarantee in teaching Sunday School of what the kids will or will not remember (although we went over Spiritual Gifts enough this year that they ought to remember it!) but I do know that:
A. They knew they were loved.
B. They knew that the person who loved them thought that Jesus was pretty awesome.

The rest, really, has to be between them and God.