Finding Him In the Strangest Places

I volunteered in my daughter’s second grade class.
I have been in her classroom before and I thoroughly enjoy the children.
They call me Mrs. G…some give me hugs when I get there…and when I leave.

It was their Thanksgiving celebration.
Two second grade classes participated and rotated between six different stations.
One station made corn husk dolls…another made rain sticks.

A third made a game with a stick, a string, and a pipe cleaner…formed into a circle.
The object of that game was to move your stick and try to get the circle on it.
The boys liked that game the best…as I watched them compete with each other.

The remaining stations were in the other teacher’s classroom.
I was in the reading corner…as we sat and read Thanksgiving stories.
It brought back so many memories.
How I love to read to children!

I allowed the children to choose the books from the basket.
The time slot allowed us to read about three books, before the next group came over.
The children in each group chose the same books even when I mixed them up.
No group knew the choice of the group before.

We read many books about turkeys and talked about the meal we would all eat.
As we talked about mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, we were all hungry…and that made us laugh.

I was amazed at the children’s knowledge of the first Thanksgiving.
The Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, the first difficult winter.
They talked about the Pilgrims being taught to put a fish in the soil to act as fertilizer.
I was proud of my daughter for preparing them so well.

By the end of the hour and a half, I had read enough about turkeys.
Turkeys hiding, camouflaging, outsmarting the desperate farmer.
Each group laughed at the appropriate places.

One little boy chose a book about Thanksgiving Mice.
Mice were personified…performing a play in their school about the first Thanksgiving.
Historically accurate…with mice as the main characters.

There is was…one word…three letters…tucked away at the very end of the story…GOD.

This was not a book about faith…it was a book about mice.
But there they were thanking God.
My heart rejoiced!

God is everywhere.
Abraham Kuyper,  Dutch statesman and theologian once said…There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ does not cry, “Mine.”

How true!

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. (Psalm 24:1)

Everything.
Even books about Thanksgiving Mice.
Even in a public school…in a book chosen by a child…sitting in a basket…in a classroom.
Everything.
And I rejoiced!

How I wish I could have said what Paul said in Athens.

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens! I see that in every way  you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
(Acts 17:22,23)

God is self-proclaiming.
He is Sovereign over all and will make Himself known.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

We have the privilege of proclaiming Him.
We often think we have to proclaim Him in big ways.
I am utterly amazed at the way He makes Himself known in subtle, small ways.
I am even more amazed that He chooses to use us at all!

I read a book about mice…and found God there.
I pray that the subtlety of His name on that page touched the heart of even one child.
I pray that one child now knows that Thanksgiving is not just about turkeys and food.
It is not only about friendship and feasting.

It is about HIM…just like every square inch in the whole domain of our human existence.
Every square inch over which Christ cries, “Mine!”
As it should be!