Loaves and Fishes

This was my first morning in charge of the Preschool Sunday School, so I arrived a bit nervous about how it would all go. But the children filed in easily and were cheery and, for the most part, attentive as I sang some songs with them, then told the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes with loaves and fishes. Once we had finished the main portion of the lesson, and each child had their “loaf” [large cracker] or “fish” [small cracker] as a snack, they settled into their coloring project. At this point a flustered mom walked in with a clearly disgruntled little one. He entered no further than two steps into the room and then slumped into the corner. His mother said a few words to him then left. He responded to my questions enough for me to get his name tag on him and then, when I asked if he wanted a snack, he nodded vigorously. He did not, however, budge from his silently scowling position. So I pointed out his place to him and returned my attention to the others. After a few minutes I saw him sliding along the edge of the room in the general direction of his seat. A few minutes later I called the children over to the carpet for another activity. By this point [Scowling] Stephen had made it to his seat and was devouring his cracker. I gave him a few more and began the next activity. The service ended early, so we did not have time to finish the last activity before parents collected their children. When Stephen’s mother came in, I handed her the bag of crackers I had remaining. “This was the only thing that got him out of the corner,” I explained, “so I thought you might want to take the rest of them?”

She thanked me profusely and explained that it had taken them 2 hours to get there, due to an unexpected bus delay. She had promised him they would stop for breakfast on the way, but then had not had time. Thus the scowling arrival ☺

As we biked back home, I was telling K about it. She always has a wise perspective on things, and her response was “You never know what the back story is behind and outside appearance, do you?” I agreed. And I smiled as I remembered how she had gone back to buy food for a homeless man as we had stopped for our own breakfast break earlier that day. It left me grateful for the people like K in my life.