I'm back in the classroom again.  In lots of classrooms actually because I'm a fancy math specialist for the littles and I've got mad skills with shapes and fractions and three digit addition.  Boom.  I had forgotten what it's like to get thirty hugs from thirty kids the moment you walk in the door.  And how sweet it is to hear the girls whisper about your "pretty shoes."  I had forgotten the magic of children learning-- the way those little faces simply beam with pride.

I had also forgotten the smells.  And the runny faces.  And the dirty fingernails.  There isn't enough hand sanitizer in the world.  And after only two weeks of this, my hands are a dried out mess from the scrubbing.  I've started wearing my raincoat to the kindergarten classes.  Those kids are wetter than a rainy day and it's not water coming out their noses.

So I'm remembering.  Oh yeah.  Those little guys are pretty stinking cute.  And they're pretty stinky.  But, the bigger deal is this: I'm around kiddos again and so I'm learning again.  About a Jesus who loves so well that He washes dirty people.  Who never turned the children away.  I'm remembering that He commanded us to be like them because there is something beautiful about the way a child gives a sweet hug, whispers admiration I like your shoes, Mrs. C.  Do you like mine?