Still No Apologies

The Bad Kids

Here I will write some things I have noticed as I grew up in my church. I have been both a "bad kid" and a "good kid" simultaneously, so trust me, I know.

When I was little, I was not the most angelic little girl around. I was not horrible, but I was definitely not the Sunday School teacher's pet. I may have been saved at that time, but I had not made Jesus my Lord.

It was a bit of a vicious cycle. I wanted to be loved by the teachers, but they looked down on me. I figured if they would always see me so, and give me "those looks," I did not care what they thought.

The reason a lot of the teachers looked down on me was because I was friends with a boy at a time when girls and boys were supposed to say each other had cooties. Most everyone assumed we were girlfriend and boyfriend. We were about seven years old, and very innocent. We never did anything inappropriate like hugging or kissing. People just liked to spread gossip.

What really made my friend and I annoying is how excited we were to play the games. We would jump around, yelling, "We're gonna die!" even when the teachers told us to be quiet (this was at AWANA). We would also lick our blue ink pens because "they tasted like blueberry." We would draw in class and whisper. We didn't think we were being bad. We were kind of blind.

As I grew up, I stopped acting like, well, a little kid. As my friend grew up, the same happened to him. A few years later, we became strangers because of the gossip spread around the church, as it remains so today 😢.

The point is, we grew up. We are not "the bad ones" anymore. In fact, my friend and I were the best at knowing about the Bible and memorizing the verses. We were pretty competitive (to be honest, he was better than me by a bit 😏).

I am telling you this because you may become a Sunday School teacher in the future. Don't look down on the "bad kids" in the church. Kids who haven't even finished middle school. You can't have it in your mind we are predestined to forever squirm in our seats, eat beads off our dresses, throw paper airplanes, and roll our eyes at the cheesy songs (yes, some, or one, of the songs is very bad).

My dad, when he became a Sunday School teacher, had faith in them. He didn't get angry at them for every little thing. When the other kids were mean to them, he would set them straight. I was also a classmate. I would talk to them, even if all they talked about was blowing Barney the dinosaur up with an atom bomb (though I tried gently to get them to stop). My brothers had them over to play with Nerf guns.

In about a couple years, these "bad kids" turned into the nicest, most caring people in the church. They were never that bad to begin with, and now they are hardly bad at all.

And as for the "good kids," don't get me started.

The point is not "it's ok to be bad because you will turn good in the end." The point is not that we should make excuses for disobedience and bad behavior. The point is to not give up on people before you even know them, or even show you care. You don't know what is happening to those children, whether it is autism, bad home life, divorce, being bullied at school by girls because [he] wouldn't hit a girl.

Like Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17).

Ever wonder why God chose Jacob over Esau to get the inheritance? Esau was a manly man, Jacob was skinny and weak. Esau was honest, Jacob was a weasel. God chose Jacob because He wants everyone to know it is not the goodness or might in a man that can "help God" gain favor in him.

Jesus had faith in "the bad kids," and so do I. So should we all.

Note from older Ellie: As I look back on this, I realize the problem was less "bad kids," and more "bad (or at least impatient) teachers!"