I have mentioned around these parts before that on Sunday mornings I help teach Sunday School at our church.  I help with the three-year olds.  They call me Mr. Mark  (or Uncle Mark, or Misker Marker).  I started doing this about six years ago, planning to put in one year to forever assuage the guilt I felt whenever we were a teacher or two short.

But I’ve never left.  I love three-year olds.  Even the ones who belong to other people.  Believe me; I’m as surprised as anybody.

One of the many fascinations I have with three-year olds is the way they handle being dropped off by their parents.  By age three most of them just walk in with no problem.  Most of the rest cry for about one minute and then are fine.

It’s the few who fall outside those main categories who intrigue me the most.  There have been a few over the years who just decide to be sad about once every couple of months.  There have been a couple of kids who were fine during the drop off, and then just start thinking about mommy and would lose it at random.  One little first-time visitor was so agitated and squirmy that I was having trouble holding him safely, so I sat him down.  He raced to the door and started repeatedly flinging himself against it.  He looked like a moth on a plate-glass window.  (I immediately scooped him up before he could hurt himself).

I told you all of that so I could tell you this.  A few months ago an exceptionally sweet little girl started attending our class.  She and I became buddies very quickly, but for the first couple weeks she cried for a minute or two when her parents would leave.

One day I was walking her around while she cried and looked longingly at the door where mommy and daddy were last seen.  She was too upset to be reasoned with, but that didn’t stop me from imagining I could.

“Just think this through,” I thought as I walked in a circle.  “Your parents are getting ready to go sit and listen to a sermon with a bunch of boring grown-ups.  You don’t really want to go with them.  Just look around in here.  We’ve got puzzles, dolls, and crayons.  We go to an indoor playroom for a few minutes every week.  It has tricycles and a sliding board.  And you haven’t even seen the Mr. Cow puppet show yet.  Mr. Cow and snack time are my specialties.”

She kept crying and I kept thinking to myself.  “If only you would settle down for one minute and listen to me, you would see how obvious it is that what I’ve got planned for you here is so much better than what you think you want.”

And then I wondered how many times God has said that to me.