I'm Definitely Not Wearing My Underwear

If you ever want to know what’s going on in your life you should hover your mouse over the tab titled “Recent Documents”.  I just did this by accident and the following three document titles popped up:  “5^th Sunday – Unity”, “Carpool Schedule”, and “Spanish Burrito”.  There you have it, a window into my world.  It doesn’t quite cover it, however, and it makes me realize that I should have written something titled, “An In Depth Look at Regular Kleenex vs. Puffs Plus”, and “Things You Should Avoid Saying To Your Young, Impressionable Sunday School Class While Operating On a NyQuil Hangover”, if I was really interested in being thorough.  

For the record, when you are on day eleventy-twenty-four-hundred of THE COLD THAT WOULDN’T DIE there is no contest; only Puffs Plus will do.  It’s the only way to prevent your nose from looking like Whitney Houston’s after a cocaine spree.  Another valuable tidbit:  When your eyes are leaky, puffy and red and your nose seems to be running for Congress a good remedy might be to watch the movie “The Last Song”.  There’s a part where the little boy has just found out that his Dad, who he’s been spending the summer with and working side by side with making a stained glass window for the local church, is dying of cancer.  His sister is awakened in the middle of the night by a loud crash, and as she explores the house for the source of the noise she opens the door to find her little brother sobbing in front of spilled tools, mumbling something about having to finish the stained glass window by himself before his Dad dies.  Good heavens.  The REAL valuable tidbit here is this:  should you find yourself in such a situation, don’t look at yourself in the mirror for a good 24 hours.  For real, I’m trying to help you here.

Yes, you might say I’ve been a bit of a hot mess lately.  I was supposed to teach my Sunday School class of 10-year-olds yesterday and even though I wasn’t feeling great, it didn’t seem like enough of a big deal to skip church and get a substitute.  I felt a little differently once I got to church, however, but decided to man up and eek out my lesson after which I would go home an hour early.  (That’s right, leaving after two full hours of church would still be leaving EARLY.  We Mormons know how to party.)  Here’s the thing.  I haven’t spent much time in my church life teaching children.  Teenagers?  Adults?  Yes.  And yes.  But kids?  I once did a two-year stint in a leadership position, but never one-on-one in the classroom.  You’re about to find out that I’m not very good at it.  

The sad thing is that these kids really are darling and good, it’s just that I’m used to an audience that is either listening or tuned out, but not randomly spewing out their thoughts while you’re talking.  It’s like living in Rain Man for an hour every week. 
“How can prayer help you?”
“My wart is bleeding.”
“What do you think makes Jesus happy?”
“I like Transformers!”
“So, how can you show courage like the prophets?”
“I’m an excellent driver.”

Normally I am patient and kind with my responses.  Yesterday…not so much.  By the time I was wrapping up the lesson I was exhausted and I was in the middle of sharing my thoughts about prophets when one of the kids blurted out, “I know where Lucy* is!”  What the…?  (Lucy is one of the cute girls in my class who was out of town.)  I wasn’t in the mood to dignify the interruption with a response so I kept talking as if I didn’t hear.  They tried again, “I know where Lucy is!”  I stopped, looked at the child and said, “Yeah, I do too but that’s not what we’re talking about right now, is it?” and then tried to finish my thought that nobody was listening to.

There’s a reason I’m only the 2^nd best.

But I AM an excellent driver.

*Name changed