Love is Patient. Love is Kind.

Teaching Sunday school has offered quite an education for me. Besides confirming that I can't glue on a googly eye to save my life, it has also given me a Master's degree in humility. Or is it in humiliation?... Either way, I'm pretty sure I won't be awarded Sunday School Teacher of the Year any time soon.

With all my teaching experience, you'd think I'd be a pro with the little guys. I taught crazy, hormonal junior highers for years, so how hard could a dozen preschoolers be? Kids are kids, right? WRONG. Preschoolers are nothing like junior highers. They're nothing like any group I've ever worked with before. And truth be told, they scare the living waters out of me. Not individually, but as a group. The way I see it, they're just one squirt of Elmer's glue away from a mob- a screaming, running, crying mob that rises up against me in total anarchy.

The only thing I have going for me besides a gift for being obnoxiously silly while leading the group in songs (I do a mean version of "This Little Light of Mine") is a genuine enthusiasm for retelling the Bible story. I really try to get into it, not the Miss Betty kind of "into it", but, you know, into it. I figure this is the meaty part of the morning, so I better really pack a good punch while I have their attention for all of thirty seconds.

But not even my heartfelt reinactment or inspiring memory verse are any match for the faculties of a four-year-old, and soon it all starts to unravel. You can only widen your eyes, lean into their circle, and talk with a loud, airy voice for so long before they're looking at you like you've been eating the playdoh again. And if that's not enough, I'll surely blow it at the end by bringing up some over-the-top theological question like, "So, why do you think God hardened Pharaoh's heart when it was time to let His people go?" (Yep, introduce a discussion about predestination and free will by age of four... that sounds about right.) These questions are always followed by a long, painful silence complete with crickets chirping in the background. Then they start fidgeting, playing with the carpet, and picking at the scabs on their legs. Soon they'll be looking around at eachother like, "Hey, do you think ol' Frog Eyes here is done freaking out, cuz I see a highrise of blocks over there just begging me to play Godzilla."

You'd think having my daughter in the class would offer me some measure of support or solace. Not exactly. Most of the time, she's leading the rebellion. I'm pretty sure there's some unwritten law out there in the universe that says, "The children of the teacher make the worst students of all." It's sounds crazy, but it's true. At least that's what I keep telling myself because if she's actually this unruly for the other teachers, then it's time to pass on my mother torch to someone a little more qualified than myself, someone like Larry the Cucumber.

If we're all sitting in a circle on the floor, Lil' Miss is the only one sitting in a chair, five feet behind us, arms crossed and scowling. If we're singing and doing the hand motions for "He's Got the Whole World", she's giving a solo performance of "Tree Blowing in the Wind" instead, an interpretive dance she's been working on. If I'm telling the Bible story, she's clawing her way into my lap, grabbing the felt board characters out of my hand, and demanding, "I want to be Mary. I'm MARY!!!" Now that's what I call mother-daughter bonding! It's all enough to have me throwing my hands up in the air and crying out to my Creator, "Why bother?! What's the point anyway? It's not like she's even LISTENING!"

But little did I know that even while Lil' Miss was boycotting craft time and hiding behind the sound equipment during clean-up, she was definitely listening. A few weeks ago, I was having a "less-than-perfect mother" kind of a day. I'd already been busted for passing on an inappropriate comment to Lil' Miss who then ratted me out and shared it with a neighbor. (There's nothing cute about your sweet little girl saying goodbye to a neighbor by yelling, "Beat it, Barbara!". Let's just say Barbara was more forgiving about it than Honk was.) I moped around the house feeling like the most unfit mother on the planet and wondered how I could quickly change my ways. My friend Jennifer, a veteran mother of three, happened to call during this time. She's pretty smart and I usually listen to what she has to say. "Trust me. You'll stop saying it. When your kids embarrass you enough times, you'll stop." Still, I was planning my penance.

But it was unnecessary. My redemption was on its way. We were all sitting around in the living room when Honk said something mildly sarcastic, something Lil' Miss perceived as mean. "That's not nice, Dad. 'Love is patient. Love is kind'". The room instantly fell silent. We just stared at her, our eyes following her around the room like she was the angel Gabriel making a guest appearance. Finally, Honk managed to say, "Honey, where did you hear that?" To which my girl, that blessed child of light, responded with, "Mommy. Mommy taught it to me at church." I don't know where the conversation went after that. I couldn't hear anything over the choir of heavenly hosts singing sweet hallelujahs in my ears.

Unfortunately, "Love is patient. Love is kind." has lost a bit of its impact over the last few weeks. It has suffered terribly at the hands of Overkill. Now Honk and I can't so much as look cross-eyed at eachother without hearing a pious Lil' Miss chant, "Love is patient. Love is kind!" Even still, our house reigns as Most Peaceful Place on the Planet right now. No one dares to raise a harsh voice for fear of enduring yet another recitation of the Sunday school memory verse. More importantly, I've learned a powerful lesson about hanging in there and doing the right thing, even if she seems too busy choreographing her latest interpretive dance to notice. After all, "Love is patient. Love is kind."