Are you a green squirrel?

ANNA LITWILLER — STAFF

“Oh, hello,” Sam’s teacher replied. “Is this Sam, the green squirrel?”

Sam thought that was a silly thing to say. “No,” he told her. He knew who he was.

“Then you must be Sam, the purple-beaked buzzard,” Elisabeth said.

“No!” laughed Sam. He didn’t believe that silly thought either, because he knew who he was.

“Oh, that’s right,” Elisabeth said. “You are Sam, and you are lost in a scary swamp.”

“No!” Sam said again. “I am Sam. A boy. I am a student in your Sunday School class who has a very hurt finger.”

“Oh, Sam,” Elisabeth answered, “you never believed for one second that you were a green squirrel or a purple-beaked buzzard, or that you were lost in a scary swamp—because you know who you are.”

Sam thought about this for a minute. 

“Remember what we talk about in Sunday School?” Elisabeth asked. “Who you are is God’s child. You are always safe and loved and cared for by God. God gives you only good. So you can’t be OK one moment and hurt the next.”

ANNA LITWILLER — STAFF

Elisabeth reminded him of something from the Bible they had read in class: “God created man in his own image” and “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:27, 31). 

“Good never changes into something bad,” Elisabeth said, “because our God keeps safe all the good that He made. That includes you!”

“I get it,” Sam agreed happily. “I am all good with nothing hurting, because God made me that way and keeps me that way. Thanks, Elisabeth. See you on Sunday!”

Now Sam really knew who he was. And his finger? It was all better.