Lessons from the playground

Sensei! Sensei! Do you want to play too? The incredulity behind their question forces me to bite my lip to retain seriousness. These sniffling, squirming, small children that share my Tuesday afternoons still don't quite know what to do with a female, foreign adult who comes to play with them.

I often don't quite know what to do with myself. :)

But after weeks of silence, of swallowing down nervousness as I picked up my bag and headed down the street to the kindergarten that holds the after-school program, the kids graciously swallow their nervousness and ask me to join them. Ever week I think of a short prayer from The God-Dependent Life: "God, I'll take care of the shopping; and you'll take care of me." God, I'll take care of getting myself there; you take care of the relationships.

And each week He does.

We shriek, run, pelt each other with snowballs. "Cool" young men who play sports saunter up and uninterestedly ask for a dodge-ball match. The first-graders and I make weapons that range from light-sabers to machine guns and stage an all-out battle in the craft room. The girls and I "knit" scarves and fold origami, and they laugh at my inability to follow folding directions. We tickle, yell, run, sing, laugh...and sometimes I wonder if the time with these children is more a gift for me than it is for them.

Why am I connected to these 60+ children? I'm not sure. But since the relationships are in God's hands, I pray that His plan comes to pass for them.

Maybe that is the prayer I need for Sunday mornings, for this morning, for every morning--an intentional reminder that the work is the Lord's, and He is the all-knowing heart-viewer who is mighty in grace: God, I'll take care of getting to the church building; I know that you can do the rest.