Trust

Last Thursday was the last day of Kid's Club. It was sad, knowing that I would probably not see these kids again until next fall, and maybe some of them never again.

Several weeks ago I had to write a poem for my poetry class including something about rain. I was thinking about Kid's Club, so I wrote this.

Trust

Some days when I looked up at the two-story brick building,

waiting for someone to notice me and open the door,

it was raining.

Sometimes I was late, and when I entered the basement,

six kindergarteners yelled my name and tried to hug me at once.

The curly-haired woman smiled, calling the kids back to their bold blue seats.

Some lessons I held Markell as he slept,

running my fingers through his long brown locks.

Sometimes when my mother’s friend, with the mic

pressing down her silvery hair, said, “God has a good plan for you,”

my heart beat fast. I traced Aubrey’s soft brown cheek with my finger,

wondering what the plan for my little friend held,

praying it didn’t include slammed doors and ex-husbands and sitting home alone.

Some days it was still raining when I let the door slam against the cedar doorstop,

and I avoided stepping in the streams running down the sloped drive.

Every time I opened the car door, I could still feel the last long squeeze

from Maria’s chubby arms and her whispering in my ear like a caressing prayer:

“I don’t want to ever let go.”

The title of trust is double in meaning. It is the overwhelming and sweet burden of feeling the utter trust a child has in you. And it is loving someone you cannot protect. Sometimes, it seems harder to trust God for the people you love than for yourself. Then we turn to prayer and cry out to the Lord, and we learn to delight in God's sovereignty.