Thank You, Jesus, for 3-Year-Olds

Last week I had lunch with my pastor's wife.  She is a wonderful lady and at the end of our conversation she challenged me to be more intentional about finding a small group (aka Sunday School class) to go to at least a couple of times a month.  Fellowship is something that I am lacking at my church and so I took her challenge.  My friend Courtney and her husband have a class they go to on Sunday mornings so I thought I'd play the role of the third wheel and go to their class even though it's a marrieds class and I'm (obviously) not yet married.

Courtney and Noah's 3 year old wasn't exactly cooperating with her parents this morning and so Noah was left in the kids wing trying to negotiate with Georgia a crying-free entrance into her Sunday School classroom while Courtney and I headed to class.  We were a few minutes late (no biggie) and caught up quickly on the topic of today's lesson -- marriage.

Seriously?  It's not awkward enough for me to be single going to a married folks' class, but now we're actually talking about marriage!  I literally sat on my left hand so as to not expose my marital status.  Courtney leaned over and assured me this was not the normal topic of conversation in class.  I swallowed hard and convinced myself that it was okay and that maybe I could steal a nugget of wisdom for the future.

And then, as if it wasn't painful enough, it got worse.

The class teacher split us into two groups -- guys and gals.  Guys on one side of the room.  Gals on the other.  We were to work with our same-sex group to determine what our needs were to feel loved inside of a marriage.  We were to make a list of these needs.


Lord Jesus, save me now.  

The teacher talked for what felt like an eternity about some potential marital "needs" and I swear the ceiling opened up and a spotlight lowered down just to shine on my ringless left hand.  The teacher went on to say that there are no wrong answers and that basically we shouldn't be embarrassed to write something down because, and I quote, "We're all married in here."  


What kind of bad joke is this?!  I seriously didn't know if I could make it out before tears found their way out of my eyes and down my face.  I not-so-gracefully excused myself to Courtney, picked up my bag and left the room.  I barely got to an empty office room before the tears came.  UGH!  Darn married people's class.  


Thankfully, Noah was still in the kids' wing trying to convince sweet little Georgia to go to her classroom.  I asked Georgia if I could go to Sunday School with her.  She took my hand in hers and we marched right on into that 3-year-old classroom.  And let me tell you -- I may have been the loser in the married class, but I was the coolest kid in the 3-year-old classroom!  We made fireworks with glue and glitter (I've gotta say I was a little jealous that I didn't get my own black piece of construction paper and glue stick) and then it was play time.

I was trying to convince Georgia to play with this sweet little girl who was apparently in love with me and trying to stand as close to me as possible.  (Just to help set the scene, here's your mental picture.  I'm 5'8'' and I was sitting in a chair made for a 3-year-old and this precious little girl was literally as close to me as she could possibly make herself.)  I asked Georgia which of the multitude of toys in the room she wanted to play with, but she just ignored me.  She knew my trickery.  Then I asked Rylee (my new little buddy) what she wanted to play with.  "I want to play with you."  Melted my sad little heart!  

So instead of pawning Georgia off onto another 3-year-old, she got a stack of books for us to read together and before I knew it, half the class was huddled around me and Georgia and Rylee as we read about colors and Jonah and David and loads of other fun things!  I could barely pull myself away from those sweet babies in time to get to big church.

The day started out kind of rough, but one thing's for sure.....I was thanking Jesus today for my 3-year-old friends!