A Right of Passage

Well, in our church, there comes a time in every child's life where they cross the line from being in the Lamb's class (2 years old-preschool) to the Treasure's Class (kindergarten - 2nd grade.) James was privileged enough to graduate to the Treasure's Class this past September. He was more than ready to stop being the leading top dog of the preschool class to the under-dog (and shortest!) of the grade school class. He needed to be more challenged and to be with a more mature group. It's been good for him to be mentored by the older kids and for him to not have the answers all the time anymore. He enjoys the class immensely...though he tells me often that he really misses snack time. - Well yeah! I would too.

One of the early on goals for this class is to learn the books of the Bible. James has been so diligent in learning them. Every time we sit down to a meal together or get in the car he recites them. It's amazing how well kids' brains work to memorize!!! I was quite impressed with how quickly he learned them.

Today was the day he got to recite them ALL to his teacher and get his sticker and his fabulous homemade, giant-sized, personalized coloring book! He was the first one of all the new kids of the class to have learned them!!! AND- there's a chunk of kids who have been in the class for over a year who still haven't learned them all.

His teacher found me after church because she said she had to share the story with me and it made her day. She told me that he stood up, had a sparkle in his eye, a smirk on his face, and told her that "she was in for a treat." James knew that he only had to memorize up to the book of James but he asked me if he could just learn them all this week. So he was happy that he could share this surprise with his teacher. (The teacher's hand out little animal reminder card to the parents every week to let them know where their child is in the list of the books and the next chunk to memorize.) She looked at him with a huge smile and said "I know I didn't tell you that you had to do all of those. You're awesome!" She thought it was adorable. Her first little person to have accomplished that challenge.

I was so proud of him and he was proud of himself too. It's those small milestones that you cherish so deeply because you know that the same milestone will only happen once. AND you see your child growing up in the Lord and developing spiritual maturity and a passion for the Lord through such simple things as memorizing the books of the Bible. I love that my kids LOVE going to worship and that they feel like their church is their second home. I think that's the way it should be and that must be how the people of the Acts 2 church felt too.

SO- needless to say, this called for a celebration. We went with Grandma, Aunt Cindy, and Aunt Sarah out to dinner at Bob Evans for lunch!!! We had a gift card and 2 coupons for free kids meals and James proudly told the waitress and people in the waiting area that he had memorized all the books of the Bible. He is too cool! We all had a "special treat" indeed.