Yesterday was Grace's 1st grade chapel. Each class is doing a chapel on one of the beatitudes & they focused on "Blessed are the pure in heart". Grace did the opening introduction. She told me the day before that she didn't need to practice her lines like the other kids because she knew it perfect already. Last night she informed me that she did the best because her words were really loud and clear and everyone could understand her. She may be shy, but she makes up for it with an abundance of self-confidence.
Each kid had drawn a picture & written a story about kids that had pure hearts and kids that had dirty hearts. On either side of the stage were two kids holding giant hearts with a clear center. For each "pure in heart" story, the kids would place a clear sheet in the pure heart and for each "impure heart" story, they would place a brown or black piece of paper in the dirty heart. Grace wrote & read the following story:
"Tommy's Mom said, "You can go to the candy shop with your friends, but you need to clean up your room." Tommy wanted to go to the candy shop first. So Tommy cleaned up his room as fast as he could so he could go to the candy shop. Soon his room was clean. Now he could go to the candy shop."
After she read her story, she placed a black paper in the dirty heart. That sort of threw me for a loop. What did Tommy do wrong? Why was his heart dirty? He obeyed his mom & cleaned his room before he went to the candy shop. I was confused. But soon chapel was done & kids were headed back to class, so my questions had to wait. We got the answers we were seeking at the supper table. Apparently, unbeknownst to us, Tommy's motivation for cleaning up his room was wrong. He didn't just clean his room because his Mom asked him to, he only cleaned it up fast (and he didn't do a very good job) because he wanted to go to the candy shop.
We gave a collective, "Oh!" and then Phil & I looked at one another with an "Oh, dear." We should have known, but didn't realize what a deep thinker Grace is. She's so often quiet, except for when she's singing her praises :), and it's hard to decipher what whirls around that cute head. Now we know...sort of.
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