Primary Perfection

He walked up to the pulpit in his little suit jacket and I held my breath. He’s just four years old and standing in front of a congregation of about 250 people. At a microphone. I watched eagerly as he stood there, not remembering what he was supposed to say. He didn’t tell me he was the very first kid to speak. Suddenly, my heart just stood still for a moment trying to capture him with his spiky hair, and unsure stance peering out into a crowd of hundreds. I can’t even imagine what was going on in his little mind.

Then, with a little nudge from his teacher, he said his line. “I am a child of God and He has a plan for me”. It was articulate, confident, and spoken more eloquently than a lot of other people I see standing behind a microphone these days.

I could suddenly exhale.

One by one the kids got up and said equally as cute things, but my eyes were fixated on my two kids. They seemed so small, and yet so big at the same time. They were sitting up there singing songs, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

It reminded me of the first time Avery spoke in church. She was also 4. I remember feeling so proud of her too. I’m still the proud mama watching her now with her grown up hairdo and her wide blue eyes not quite mouthing the words to the songs quite as animatedly as her brother, but still singing in her own way. Barely moving her lips. It’s so hard to know what she’s feeling until she amazes you by telling you what she knows when you think she isn’t even listening.

It’s a funny thing watching your kids grow up and turn into real people. This was Kyle’s first time participating in a church primary program. I didn’t really know what to expect because his personality is SO different than Avery’s.  But, I could imagine it. And, he did just about what I had imagined. He sang almost every word to every song (he’s my musical one I think) and he seemed comfortable with an audience. Which is about right for this kid.

The highlight for me was when they tried to do sign language to one of the songs. Kyle’s signing was somewhere between spastic and just trying to keep up. He looked like he was really concentrating though. It was hilarious.

Towards the end, I could tell he was losing interest in being still and quiet, and he started making faces at the audience and did what every normal four year old boy would do when asked to sit still in front of hundreds of people. He started making guns with his hands and shooting the audience. Nice. Note to self: Not allowing your child to play with toy guns (except water guns, of course) will not stop him from getting creative. Luckily a quick glance in my direction put that to an end. All it took was a slow shake of my head, and he knew what I was thinking.

At the end, they each got up and said their full names one by one and shared how they know that Heavenly Father loves them. This time, there was no need to “fake perfection”. It was perfection.

And so are they.

Miss my post from yesterday? Hope you’ll go check it out. For some reason it didn’t show up in the WP reader. It was no masterpiece, but if you love me, you’ll read it.