Prayers of the Littles

We do a lot of fun things in kindergarten…we hatch ducks, play with an octopus, cut fries at in-n-out, and while those are fun, they’re not the best part of kindergarten. The best part is right here:

This was our class praying after attending our field trip to the Compassion Experience this week. Nothing could bring more joy to my heart than hearing my littles pray. They are so willing and excited to talk to Jesus. I am blessed beyond measure to be there to hear them pray and I wish so badly that you could come hear them too. There is power in prayer, and I know that God loves and listens to all of us, but I have to say that after hearing them pray, I think that there is a special power in children’s prayers! Today we got a chance to pray for kids around the world. We wrote down our prayers, colored pictures of them, and then got in a circle and every single kindergartner prayed their prayer out loud. I have zero doubt that God was sitting right there in that circle with us. Read some of these prayers, imagine them in precious five-year-old voices, and be blessed!

"Help all kids to have a family and a healthy snack."

"For people to have a safe place to live."

"Please help people who want babies to have enough money."

"Help people have clean water."

"Help kids not to have to steal to get food."

"Help someone who is homeless in the desert to have water."

Holy Week in Kindergarten

How do you go about explaining the story of Easter to littles? What do I say? How can I explain the horrific atrocities of the cross without scarring their little minds with nightmares? How do I explain in words the greatest miracle that ever took place, the resurrection, when I can’t truly understand it either? Welcome to holy week in kindergarten. 

The Bible is a deeply treasured book in our kindergarten class. I never really plan out what I’m going to say when I tell them Bible stories. I pray that God will speak through me and He does! Oh does He! It has gotten to the point that when I just reach for where the Bible is kept, by my big teacher chair, I can hear excited whispers of, “Oh! The Bible!” or “Bible stories are the best!” or “I love it when you read the Bible to us!” That is not me, folks! That’s all God.

Anyway, as we enter Holy week in kindergarten, we have already talked through the triumphal entry and waved our construction paper palm branches as we shout (high-pitched screams would be more accurate), “Hosanna!” in chapel.

The kiddos have wrinkled their noses in disgust at the thought of Jesus washing the caked mud off of His disciples feet at the last supper and nodded their heads in understanding that we need to serve others because if Jesus can do it, we should to (although they’re still not sure about washing someone’s feet…they have however agreed to put pencils out for me and help their friends up when they fall down).

We’ve listened to the sound of 30 pieces of silver (or 3 dimes as it were) jingling and wondered how Judas could betray His dearest friend for those clinking coins.

I’ve gotten down on my knees in front of the class and recounted in kindergarten words what Jesus’ prayer in the garden might have sounded like: “Daddy! Daddy, I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s going to hurt too much. Mean people are going to hurt me. They’re going to say mean things to me. They’re going to spit in my face. Isn’t there some other way we can save all these people that won’t hurt so much? But Daddy, if there’s no other way, then I will do it!”

We’ve looked at the nails…I skip over the flogging, the crown of thorns, the cat-of-nine-tails, a lot of the agony because there will be time enough to read about that later when they can read themselves (their eyes are getting big enough as it is what with the spitting and hitting and name-calling because those are things that a kindergartener understands)…but I cannot skip over those nails. Of course I’m showing them the little inch long nails that I might hang a picture with, but it doesn’t matter. Nails are nails and my littles know that nails are not supposed to go into hands and feet no matter what length. I once asked the kids why we point to our hands when we say “Jesus” in sign language and a kindergartner said in all sincerity, “because that’s where Jesus got poked by the nails.” Yes…where Jesus got poked.

I explain about the two men crucified on either side of Jesus, bad men who had done bad things and deserved to be there, unlike our Jesus. The kindergartners nod in understanding after I explain that one of those men realized right there on his cross who Jesus really was and got to go live in Heaven with Jesus forever that day; and I pray that they won’t forget, as so many adults do, that Jesus will forgive us no matter what we’ve done and no matter how late we are in asking forgiveness.

I turn the lights off in our classroom to show the darkness that fell over the sun while Jesus was on the cross and I pull out a little square of cloth to represent the thick curtain in the temple that separated the people from the holy of holies. They always gasp when I rip the cloth in half (they never see that one coming) just as the curtain ripped from top to bottom when Jesus took His last breath.

We actually talked through all these snippets of the story last week as we prepared for Holy Week and that part about Jesus taking his last breath was where we ended the story last week because the weekend came. I told my littles that it hurts my heart to leave the story there, with Jesus taking his last breath before dying, but then I leaned in closer and whispered, “but you know how it’s going to end, right?” They all vigorously nodded their heads and smiled as they were snapped out of the sad story we had seemingly been a part of for the last ten minutes. “It has a happy ending,” I continue to whisper, and they whisper back, “We know, Miss Kirchner, He comes back to life!” What relief there is in knowing the ending.

So as we begin Holy week, I am so relieved that I know how the story ends. My littles and I can endure the ugliness of the story because we know how it’s going to end. How terrible would it have been to be one of the disciples on that Friday and Saturday who didn’t know that joy was just on the horizon. There are still so many people today who don’t know the ending…and they need to. I know we don’t normally encourage telling how a story ends, but in this case, I think it’s ok. I can’t wait to get to the part with my kindergartners about the stone being rolled away and the angels and Jesus eating with His disciples again, but I can’t get to that part until we wade though the ugliness of the slaps, the mean words, the spit, the blood, the nails…and I just can’t make it though that part without knowing that the happy ending is on it’s way. And thankfully in kindergarten, we do know. So as we embark on the hard, ugly, painful next couple of days as we remember what Jesus went through for us, know that victory is on its way. Jesus is alive!

I love you!

“I love pelicans!”
“I love my Mommy!”
“I love a quarter pounder with extra cheese!”
“I love Jesus!”
“I love Disneyland!”
“I love baseball!”
“I love you!”

These were all responses I got when I asked my kindergartners to tell me something they love. As we talked about love at our Valentine’s Day party, I told them that I couldn’t possibly let Valentine’s Day go by without making sure they knew about two loves in particular. First, God’s love for each of them. They know. I tell them all the time how much God loves them, but perhaps because of that it becomes just another nice thing to say. I want them to know! I told them, “You guys, God loves you so much! Like, He really, reeeeeeeeally loves you! He is crazy about you! God would rather die than spend forever without you!” Then I made them tell each other, “God loves you!” and “God is crazy about you!” with lots of giggles ensuing.

The second love I need them to know is mine. I’ll never forget my first year teaching kindergarten, I asked my students half way though the year, “Did you know that I love you guys?” and they shook their heads no! What?!? They must have known. But I guess I had never said it out loud. So I told them that day how much I loved them. Then they knew. And I’ve made sure to tell every class after how much I love them. They need to know. They need to have no doubt. And so do I. So do we all. Don’t we need to hear those words spoken out loud by another human being and aimed at just us? Those three words may just be the most powerful words there are. Words that can launch a life or save a life. 

I calculated it and I think that I get told “I love you” an average of eleven times per day. Kate tells me she loves me every time we hang up the phone (around three times a day), Mom, Dad, and Jenn tell me they love me when I say goodnight to them in person or on the phone each day (that’s three times), and I’d say that on average I hear “I love you” about five times a day from kindergartners. That’s eleven. And that’s not counting the phone calls I get during the week from close friends or cousins who usually say “I love you” before hanging up and that’s also not counting when I see the words “I love you” written out in an email or text from family and friends. I don’t know what the average is, but I would guess that I’m over the average! I like it that way! So on this Valentine’s Day, go tell someone “I love you!” and up their average!

Ash Wednesday...Of Confession and Smelling Like a Campfire

Ash Wednesday. Sin. Confession. Forgiveness. Those are deep ideas…but kindergartners are deep people. Yes, they cry over a bow falling in the potty, and they laugh like crazy when we pray for the country of Djibouti (for obvious reasons…it’s pronounced, juh-BOOTY), but amid the silliness and crazy, five and six-year-olds understand so much more than they are given credit for. They may not understand the big word “repentance” or “confession,” but they certainly understand the need to say sorry when someone has been pushed or when mean words have been spoken.

Today is Ash Wednesday and in kindergarten we had a time of confession, which sounds kind of funny for kindergarten, but it’s the absolute truth, and it was real and good and turned into a sweet celebration of God’s forgiveness. I explained about the Biblical practice of putting ashes on ones head as a sign of repentance and how the dirty ashes reflect the dirty state of our sinful hearts before we’ve asked forgiveness and God has washed us clean. Together the littles and I talked about the problem of sin and how we’re all in deep. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that God loves us each so much that he sent Jesus to take the punishment for that sin for us. We all agreed that that is totally not fair (like someone taking our spanking when we’re the ones who deserve it), but we’re awfully glad that He did!

Then came the hard part…we all had to think of a sin that we have committed and write it down on a piece of paper. Kindergartners are good at knowing what’s right and what’s wrong. 

I say “hard part” because don’t we tend to find it excruciatingly difficult to lay down our pride and actually confess that we stumble and that we fall? But you know what? Honestly it’s not so painful when you and a group of five year olds are all being honest together. James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other so that you may be healed.” When we stand together in our need of forgiveness it just seems so less daunting, even when those who are standing with me are under four feet tall.

I helped them each spell the words that they wanted to write and they took it seriously as they fumbled through the letters to spell ugly words like,

-“lying”

-“not sharing”

-“jealousy”

-“mean words”

-“hate”

After writing our words we each had a chance to say a short prayer asking God to forgive us of whatever it was that we wrote on our paper. After confessing and asking God for forgiveness we each got to put our piece of paper in a bowl where we lit it on fire and celebrated (as we watched it disintegrate into ashes) that God has promised to forgive us and to no longer see that sin when he looks at us, but instead to see us as pure and washed clean.

Nothing like a little pyrotechnics to get a point across! We took our time in doing this…lighting each person’s sin in turn and asking if God still sees that sin or if he has forgiven that student, which was met every time with a resounding “No! He has forgiven him/her!”

After we each had a chance to ask forgiveness and see the visual representation of God erasing that sin, we poured a few dribbles of water into the ashes to make a paste which we stuck our fingers in and finger-painted crosses on squares of paper which we will use in our countdown to Easter.

The crosses are literally made out of the ashes of the sins that those precious, honest, five-year-old hands wrote down. Isn’t that exactly what the pain of the actual cross was made of?

            I told the kids at the end of the day how proud I was of them because sharing a sin with a whole group of people is not an easy thing to do. We like to hold our failings close and keep them hidden, but as we discovered today, what joy there is in the freedom of confessing our sins and being forgiven. And it certainly helps if you can involve some flames and watch those sins disintegrate into ash as God’s grace and forgiveness covers it all! Watching (and being a part of) kindergartners confessing sins and rejoicing in forgiveness is truly sacred ground and I was blessed to be in their presence and in the presence of our living and loving God today. So on this Ash Wednesday of 2016, we’re all leaving kindergarten forgiven….smelling like campfire, but forgiven!

Have you seen the Jimmy Kimmel clips of parents giving their kids terrible gifts for Christmas, like a potato or a rubber band, and then the parent pretends like it’s the greatest gift in the world while the kids get super upset? Kindergarten is like those videos, except the exact opposite. I’m the one getting those presents from kids and while the gifts seem ridiculous, they actually ARE the greatest gifts in the world. You wouldn’t believe the gifts I’ve gotten from kiddos! Here’s what I’ve discovered about kids, at least in my own personal experience. For all the talk about kids needing to learn how to share, they are truly the most generous people on the planet. They like to give gifts, but the problem is that they have no money, so they give what they have. I can’t tell you how many battered stuffed animals, dolls with ratty hair, and scratched up matchbox cars I’ve gotten from my students. Those are by far the most precious gifts because I know that I was given that Rapunzel doll with tangled hair (no pun intended) because my students know she’s my favorite princess, and I know how much the gift of those matchbox cars means because they’ve brought them for share and I know those are their favorite toys…and you better believe I keep them all.
My favorite gift I got for my birthday last week was…a straw! No kidding! I pulled out the tissue paper from a gift bag and out fell a purple straw from coffee bean! My precious kindergartner knows that my favorite color is purple, so why not!?! I love the way my littles give what they have. I love the way they give me anything and everything that reminds them of me whether it’s a very loved Rapunzel doll, or an individual purple sequin (yes, I have actually received that gift), or a wrapped nickel and penny (which I happen to know constitute all the coins that student owns). Deuteronomy 16:17 says, “Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which he has given you.” Kindergarteners truly give as they are able. May we too give as we are able, whether it be money, time, a scratched up purple matchbox car…or a straw!