26. (ten.) : In which the visitor arrives.

This day was made brighter by the knowledge
that a dear friend would appear in it at some point,
unexpected and out of place,
a sunbeam-alien, she suddenly walked into pre-K concert practice.
Our visitor has come! And she will bless this week with her fresh perspective
and prodigious artistic gifts. I told the gang that she's the one who painted our classroom walls. Painted our tree. Our teepee. Our house. Our leaves. Our treasure box. Our lamp. All the mural-ificence we are blessed by on a daily basis.
They were impressed. "How did you become an artist?" "You're a good painter."
She's here, she's here! Hurrah, she's here!

As I was explaining why math is my least favorite thing to teach the small folk, she uttered the quote of the day: "Yeah. I think math is the thing I hate most in the entire world...besides sin." "Math and sin," we have repeated occasionally since. "Math and sin."

My favorite blessing of the day (it makes a big difference to have something you're really excited to share with them... and this one, God blessed with attentiveness on their parts): "church trees."

Months ago, I heard somewhere (I think in a sermon at my remarkable church here) this fact that I mentally filed away under the label "the secret of the trees:" that if a tree has good roots, then the wind that comes against it actually makes those roots stronger.
This is worth chewing on for some time.

I jotted it down to share with the kiddos when we got to the Church age in our journey through Scripture. And we got there this week. We're talking about "go into all the world," the basic concept of the disciples going, telling, and God's family then expanding. The global Church. The idea of the good news. And our responsibility to share it.

The idea appeared in me to make 'Church trees' together, out of paper bags. When they stand on their own, rootless, they can be blown right over. But put the bag on your hand, with your arm as the root, and there's no toppling it. We drew faces on the trees on the bag and glued green felt scraps on for leaves, mosaic-style. Very simple. What touched me was how responsive they were to the idea of the secret of the trees. To my statement that our roots are the fact of the crucifixion, the atonement, and the resurrection. "We know that we know that we know that we know," said we about those truths. And those are our roots. God whispered as I spoke, "Tell them that this is why you teach them the Gospel over and over and over. To give them strong roots, so they won't be easily toppled." I told them.
We talked about the persecution of the Church. How it will fall over if it does not cling to the Truth about who Jesus is. How we may be whipped, spit on, stoned, jailed, scolded, mocked, but when we know that we know that we know that He is Lord, then those winds only make our roots stronger. They got this metaphor. To a degree that I didn't expect them to get it. Thank you, Lord, for the "smallest" ideas. Plant these seeds in their hearts to stay. To grow. To take root. amen.