The Angry Little Girl

She was a pretty petite little girl whose face lit up when she grinned and her eyes sparkled. She wanted you to like her but she was not convinced she was lovable. Not in the way of never-give-up-on-me lovable. When I met her in class she didn't always smile. Sometimes her little brow was furrowed and she could look daggers at the other kids. She had a distinct scowl but as time passed, I saw a few more grins. She even gained a composed countenance and occasionally a giggle slipped out.

This little girl was smart and even smart in the ways of the world. One day she astonished me with her wisdom. She needed help with math and reading although it was hard to know how much since she faked her abilities to hide them. No expectation please! She won my heart this fragile tough little portion of God. She loved the Lord. She loved to pray and look things up in the Bible. She asked Big and never doubted that God was able.

She was a challenge. She lacked basic knowledge in the core subjects. She was a constant interruption to the class. She didn't try. She would hold her pencil so lightly it was like a spider skittering across the page we joked. Then one day she turned in work that I was sure had been done by my "best" student with perfect printing. I had suspected a ruse; then I knew it. Funny, she really did want her light to shine through and to show her true self.

At recess she would just hang around me. Even if she played for a bit with the other kids, she would hop back over to the picnic table where I was sitting. We had a lot of short chats. Being very athletic she would show me her latest dance or gymnastic routines between our conversations. She would do a couple of Round Off's skip over have a chat and off to her next move. This made her happy and me.

This is a good story of what God did. She became a good student with excellent grades openly showing her talents in academics. She gained the benefit of wanting to do well. Occasionally she was "written up" by other teachers for activities on the bus or lunch infractions. One day only she and I were alone in the class when she tore up a letter of reprimand sent to her mother from the school, her tiny thunderous brow scowled. We talked over her mistake and I went with her to apologize to the head of the school. Before we left the classroom, she stared me down. "You don't believe in this either Teacher." "Believe in what?", I replied. "You don't believe in Write Ups( for bad behavior).” "Why did you say that?", I asked. "Because you never give them. You just talk to us." True, we talked things over. We had many important conversations in class and frequent impromptu meetings in my "office", the hallway. I thought about that. It was March and I had not written up one child and had never given it a thought. But the children observed. They knew. They knew when they were respected and loved and honored.

"Except you become like a little child you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

This tiny girl who had been left outside of a building at two weeks old, at seven had wisdom beyond her years. And she gained some freedom and joy and got to be little. And I gained. So blessed by this child.