"Thankful for my Eyes"

(Courtesy of Servants Heart Quartet)

I was asked to teach the lesson today in Nursery about Heavenly Father's plan for us. If you've ever handled, owned, borrowed or looked up the Primary Lesson manual, you'd remember just how wide the reach is in teaching 18 month-old "newbies" to 3 year-old "seniors".

It was a pretty hard lesson to dissect. The choices scattered in my head! "Do I go with the doll recommendation? (It might incite an "I want it" riot) Do I go and infuse the lesson with the all-familiar I am a child of God? (I might confuse the audience with downtime) Do I go with the recommended scripture verses? (Might be too way over their heads)"

You can see my dilemma... But as I looked over my printout, I couldn't help but have that automatic prayer in my heart spit out an SOS to our dear "'ole Dad" and ask HIM for some directions to teach all that would be there today. (I don't do so well with teaching; it makes you wonder why I took up Elementary Education-well, me, too!)

I wanted to encompass all of the above choices but without any of the pressures of structured teaching- I was going for fun! Immediately, I spotted these sure-fire "attention grabbers" that even I couldn't stop looking at them. One of them was the poem, "I am Thankful for my Eyes". While handing the children out their coloring sheets of a boy/girl, depending on if they are a boy or a girl, I told them that no matter what they look like, their color, their style, Heavenly Father loves them. And guess what happened? I felt the proof of that statement! It gave me the confidence to sequentially do the rest of the lessons through two more interactive poems involving Heavenly Father letting us live here with our parents and how God loves us because He created the moon and the sun.

Do I know if the children felt the impact of the lesson? I can only hope so; but I certainly did and I certainly felt His love for all the precious children that were in that room today... I am thankful for my eyes that I was able to see their faces light up when we held hands and made moon and sun imitations.

All I know is, each child knew they were a child of God, that He loves them and that they love Him back. It trumped "Wheels on the bus..." by far. I am also thankful for their parents that help them each day to know that basic but powerful fact...