By Carlo Sosa-Ortiz

The mind of a child is truly wonderful. This is something that went through my mind after finishing up our kids’ program one Sunday evening. 

One of our kindergarteners in our group has autism. This child is constantly moving, has difficulty making eye contact, and does not always respond back when he’s asked questions. He’s a very picky eater and doesn’t like the texture of most of his food. At times, he can become overstimulated, covering his ears during worship on Sunday evenings, especially when the other children like to shout instead of sing. 

But this child is simply wonderful.

I remember watching him in the nursery when he was three years old and being amazed when he would not only recite the months but could also spell each month as he progressed through the year. He could count to well past 100, and he could also read and spell some words. Did I forget to mention that he could do all this at three years old?

This past Sunday evening, I heard him as he quietly muttered his times tables. I watched as he sat at the digital piano in our chapel and, with the piano turned off, correctly sang scales in tune. He even could sing intervals with what seemed to be perfect pitch. This little boy is a true savant. 

While we sat in worship together recently one Sunday evening, him playing the piano while the other kids sang, I wondered if he was listening to anything that was going on around him. I sat in amazement of him as his fingers smoothly glided across the keys, and I was tickled to hear his little voice sing out a C scale as the other kids sang about all the wonderous things that God made. “God made the land. God made the sea. But the very best thing is God made me.”

As they sang that last line, I turned to this little boy and sang back to him “But the very best thing is God made you” and tapped his heart with my finger. 

He stopped playing the piano’s keys, looked up at me with his big eyes with an even bigger smile stretching across his face, and he sang back to me. “But the very best thing is God made me.” 

And I knew he heard me.

I always wonder what the kids will remember from our time together. It’s something that goes through my mind every time during Sunday School and after every children’s sermon. I stopped caring a while back whether they could quote scripture or if they know their books of the Bible in order or if they knew what happened to Paul on the Damascus Road (though these are all good things that we do work on). 

Something else matters more. 

If every child can leave knowing that the people of our church love them and that they are loved by God even more, I consider their time in children’s ministry a success. I remember hearing a sermon where a pastor mentioned all the Sunday School teachers who had helped foster her love for the church and for God as a child. 

While sitting in the pew, I began to write down those adults, who as Mr. Rogers would say “loved me into being,” and who prepared me for my ministry. Miss Myra, Mr. Ray, Miss Connie, Miss Vela, Miss Carol, Mr. Cox, Mr. and Mrs. Estep, and so many more whose faces I still see but whose names I’ve since forgotten.

They loved me. They didn’t just love me because of my beliefs on salvation, or that I could recite the Lord’s Prayer, or that I knew the Roman Road. They didn’t love me because I was as quiet as a church mouse, or was good in Sunday school, or because I behaved like an angel. Despite the title of “reverend” in front of my name, my mother could swear in court that I was none of those things when I was a boy!

My teachers simply loved me for me because God does too. It’s their love that has sanctified my beliefs in the church, and with God’s grace, has kept me walking through the sanctuary doors again and again. 

It is no small part that our church’s kids keep me coming back now as an adult who works for a church. Their simple approach to life and playful spirits root me in a much deeper Christian hope of how the church ought to and can be. Adults can learn from their freedom of presumptions and openness to the possibility of strangers becoming friends.

I’m thankful for children, like my little maestro friend, who have taught me of what it means to be a child of God, who knows and responds with simple joy that he is God’s handiwork. What other way to respond to this knowledge but with pure delight?

May we all learn from these little ones who can teach us about the Lord’s heart in such humbling ways. May their lessons remind us to commit ourselves to loving all God’s children with openness, inclusivity, and compassion. And may we be ready to be amazed. 

Yes, the mind of a child is truly wonderful. But God’s love for each of us is a greater miracle still.

Carlo Sosa-Ortiz is Associate Pastor for Christian Education at First Central Presbyterian Church