Teaching Sunday School

Saturday night I had the pleasure of watching Selena imitate me teaching Sunday school. Many of you know that I had seriously thought about not teaching Sunday school, and had in fact asked if we could find someone to take over my class. My perspective on this really changed this week through observations I made through Selena.

A dear friend of ours is fighting for her life. While our relationship has had its ups and downs, I love her as much as I could have loved my sister or even my mother. After two heart attacks, a stroke, and many other surgeries, she has found out that she has to have bi-pass surgery this week. It is a very risky surgery for her since she was told that she might not wake up just from the anesthesia alone. Selena asked me where she has been, now I am not about to lie to Selena, so we had a little talk about what was going on. Selena asked if Nana was in heaven, I explained no, she was just in the hospital, but someday yes, Nana would go to heaven. Selena turned and walked into the other room, where I heard her praying to Jesus, asking him to come into her heart, so she could go to heaven. Selena understands a lot about God, and Jesus and can tell you the entire steps to salvation, but she has a hard time understanding what sin is.

On Saturday night before going to bed, I could hear Selena talking to herself in play. I went to see what she was doing and this is what I found.

Selena was telling her imaginary students that the Bible story was from 2 Samuel, she had my Bible opened to 1 Samuel, so she was pretty close to being correct. She laid her hand on the Bible and told her students, “This is the Word of God. Do you girls understand the Word of God?” She then proceeded to tell them all about it. She was imitating me, holding up different things that I use in the classroom and was moving around the table as if to help each child with the lesson of the evening.

After closely observing Selena for a while as she would ask me to read a story from her Bible, at first she asked me to read from the second page, but quickly corrected herself and asked for Exodus, the second book of the Bible. Watching her in AWANA, and all the verses she already has memorized and her pointing out to me all the patches that she is going to work so hard to earn. Then hearing that sweet prayer and watching her imitate me so precisely, I knew with everything inside of me, that I am doing just what I am suppose to be doing. I am not to give up teaching, which believe me was a bittersweet decision to make. With that said, I met Sunday’s class with much enthusiasm. I even shared with the girls, what I had just decided, and used that as part of our lesson plan of following God.