Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD. Your sons will be like olive shoots around your table. NIV Psalms 128:3-4

The kindergarten teachers along with Krista Allison put together a royal kindergarten graduation ceremony on Monday evening. Running a little late from the events of the day, I arrived to discover the auditorium filled with parents, siblings, and proud grandparents. It was hard to sneak in unobtrusively especially when you are taking part in the program.

The students did what they did best, looking “cuter than a puppy under a little red wagon on Sunday,” as Tennessee Ernie Ford used to say. As each student had their moment in the spotlight, I could hear the murmured sighs of joy coming from one family and then the next. The slide show was melting hearts right and left as images of innocence paraded by. Any number of tissues were consumed during the evening as all bore witness to a year of spectacular growth and change in these young children. If nothing else, the evening highlighted what a treasure each little life represented and how it was such an honor and privilege to have shared in one year’s life of a child. And to see your children awake from your dreams is a feeling only a parent knows. The cameras were rolling and a ton of digital images were preserving the moment.

Of course, these were the very same children that barely a few months ago had so provoked their parents that they were tempted to pinch their little heads off. Moms and dads were squaring off and telling each other to do something about THEIR offspring, blaming each others genes for any and all behavioral problems.

Now that is family life for you: proud as punch one day and ready to rip an arm off to beat someone over the head with it the next. But time has a way of smoothing out the bumps, and when we stand back and get a glimpse of the big picture, we are amazed at what God had done and is doing through it all. We are participating in the very act of creation, growth, life, and blessing. For every one inconvenience, late night sickness, broken lamp, or scene of public embarrassment our children bring, we stand amazed at the grace that takes us through it all. Growing up is not a neat and clean affair. But it is powerful as we see it bring into being a story all its own, one that has never been told before since the beginning of time. And we were there.

So it is looking back on this year as an administrator. Life in the CFC family was not always neat nor clean and sometimes even downright messy and painful. Yet there was life, pulsing, moving, growing, learning, and always riddled with some laughter along the way. As I reflect, I, too, will grasp and hold the beauty of it all as we participated in the mystery of one year in the life of a child, times 150. Yes, there were tears, scuffed knees, failed tests, notes home, and even a conference or two. But stepping back to sense the big picture, I celebrate on this day a year of school busting out with life and the promise of more growth to come. My cameras are rolling. I am murmuring pride at all that these students are becoming. And, yes, I am proud to know that I and all those who labor alongside of me had just a little something to do with it all. I will keep my tissues hidden, but you will see them if you look closely. Thanks for letting us participate in the lives of your children. What a privilege.