Helen Tyte

Why?

This week I was privileged to share the first days of school for the new intake of Reception Class pupils. The first lesson was all about hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and scissor control. Task one was to carefully colour in a gingerbread person, before cutting around the outline as neatly as possible. I was assigned a table and sat next to a little boy who had his head in his hands. ‘Why do I have to do this?’ he asked me, so I gently explained the reasons behind it. He scribbled vigorously across the gingerbread person (leaving no doubt in my mind that his hand-eye and motor control skills needed refining!) He couldn’t cut the picture out alone, so I put my life (or fingers) on the line by holding the paper and turning it as he cut. Whilst he wrote his name on the back of the figure I turned to the little boy on the other side of me, who had added extra bits to make his picture a very anatomically correct gingerbread MAN.

Turning back to the first little boy I saw he had chopped the arms and legs off his gingerbread person. But, not to worry, I could fix it with tape!

For the next task he had to write down what he was looking forward to, ‘Going home with my gingerbread person and chopping its arms and legs off!’ was his response.

We moved swiftly onto task three. This last task was to carefully colour in the outline of a picture, choosing our favourite colour, just like in the class storybook we had read earlier that morning. ‘Why?’ he wanted to know. Cue further explanation about developing those all important skills. ‘So what is your very favourite colour?’ I asked him. He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘White!’ The picture remained uncoloured!

Sometimes we want to ask God why things happen and we want to know the reasons for things. Sometimes all we need to know is that God is standing by us, that we should make the most of any opportunity to grow, and just do what we are told!