Kindergarten Babies

I spent most of my life in the not-so-hallowed halls of an elementary school. Most of that was within the confines of room 9, the fourth-grade class. The kindergarten teachers were great shepherds of their little flock, and seemed to be most intuitive about strays, and excellent at keeping them together. But every once in a while, I would find the forlorn kindergartner standing with both hands in front, holding his lunch pail, and obviously not knowing where to go.

In elementary schools, the school works hard at keeping the kindergarteners separate.  And the kids are just so young, that they know almost nothing about the school-world at large. They know their boundaries, their playground, and maybe that is about the total sum of their knowledge. But as long as they were in the boundaries, they were okay.

It only happened a few times in my 27 years with Pony. But I would see the child, bereft of his class, and lost. I would bend over, as kindly as an adult could (does any adult not intimidate the little ones by their very presence?), and ask the obvious question. 

“Did you need help getting back to your classroom?”

They would nod their head. 

“Who’s your teacher?” 

They would give a name, and I would lead them back to their classroom, where relief would spread all over their faces when they saw their familiar surroundings, their room, their home.

The picture of that poor child in the hallways is haunting me these days. I remember the lostness of the child so much and I have come to compare it to adult Christians before their God. I think we assume far too much when we get into the presence of God these days. We assume that we know what we are praying for, but after we reflect a bit we realize we do not have a clue. We assume we know what God wants us to do, but reflection again shows we do not have a clue.

We are lost and the only way out is to nod your head at the adult in the room (God) and follow him back to safety. We can rest in assurance that “our adult” is always there, and ever at our right hand. I wish we might tout a little less about our importance, and tout a little more about the only one that can get us out of the calamities we find ourselves in. In God’s eyes, we must all appear as those forlorn kindergarteners. Waiting patiently to be helped.