Letters to God

Today was a hectic, busy day for me. I'm not nearly ready enough to work tomorrow morning and then head up to CT, but I just had to take a moment to record something that happened today out of the blue. Something that kind of left me speechless.

This morning I was tutoring at the girl's school. My first student is a third grader who I see for a mere 15 minutes and all we do is go over and over lists of sight words. It is literally the most monotonous, boring 15 minutes and there are times when this sweet girl can't hardly stand it anymore. Add to that the good possibility that she is somewhat ADHD (she can touch all 8 computers and still sit down before me in the time it takes me to walk from the door to our desk!) and really struggles with reading.

Today we went back to our corner to begin. We had 100 words to read today, three times! We've done this since the beginning of the year and we've grown fond of our own little routine. We are so attached to our routine that when they tried to find another parent to work with her on another day, she "fired" her! Today, we plowed through her words and then she completed her favorite part, which is to star all the words she was able to say correctly all three times. While she is starring, she will ramble on to me about any number of random things from the weather, to being sick, to how much she likes her pencil, etc...

Today, without even looking at me, she said, "My hand really hurts - I've been writing A LOT!" I agreed with her that third grade involves quite a bit of writing. She replied, "Are you Catholic?" I told her no, I was a protestant. She didn't say anything, so I asked her if she was Catholic, to which she replied, "Yes I am, and I have been writing a LOT of letters to God. Have you ever done that?" I was about to answer when she continued, "Every night I write Him letter about everything and I leave them all by my desk. He just 'takes them up'!" She said this with a sweeping motion up to heaven. I smiled and asked, "Does He read them?" She said, "Well, I guess He does because in the morning, they are just gone!"

I'd love to say that we sparked a more in depth conversation, but she quickly turned to her experience as an alter person for her first time and how she almost dropped the book. Then, as soon as that conversation started it ended with her quickly departing to join her class in media. She left me with a smile on my face. Letters to God at the age of 9 - I would LOVE to read those! Oh, to have faith like a child.