The Things We Remember

Yesterday on BLT, we talked about the year in school that was toughest on us. I picked my freshman year of high school. With poofy bangs, enough fat to house a second person, and a face suitable for a game of connect the dots, I was just a mess.

I wondered if I would ever be normal. Ever fit in.  

Ever.

The one place I felt I mattered most was at church. I loved the kids...so much. I worked in the nursery every chance I found...and I loved teaching the kids during the midweek service, too. The church didn't have much money and I hated to ask for fresh curriculum for just a small handful of kids, so I scrounged through the church library and found old teacher guides.

With a little piecing here...a little tweaking there...I turned the old lessons into something new and presented them {along with a small snacklet} to the kids every week.

They were typical kids...and I wondered from one week to the next if what I was teaching made any sense or settled in their minds in any way.

And then one night, after she picked up her two boys, one of the moms said to me, "Rebekah, I just want to tell you what a gift you have."

I stared at her until the heat on my face jolted me back to reality and I busied myself with cleaning up the room. Compliments made me extremely uncomfortable. But she continued....

"I couldn't do what you're doing. I couldn't just pick up old books and make something new out of them. I couldn't put together something the kids would like. But they love it. Every week they tell us what they've learned. You should just know that you have a gift and I appreciate the time you put in each week."

Funny that today...the kids are the ones that intimidate me the most. The last time I was asked to teach a kids' class, I panicked and asked for a helper. The last time I was asked to write curriculum for kids, I paid one of my friends to write it for me.

But those days instilled in me a deep love for teaching and writing Bible studies, even if my target audience has changed.

And the one thing I've never forgotten was a mom who took two seconds after a midweek service to let a poofy haired, overweight, insecure teenage teacher know she was appreciated. Two seconds. Two seconds that gave me an ounce of confidence in a time when I felt none.

What if I slowed down and did the same?


{I linked up to Kristen's Out of the Blue Thursdays!}