Nursery Poem

Good Seeds will Grow

Dear Sister Buchanan,

You held our tender hearts and hands

Each Sunday we were here,

You taught about our brother Christ

Each moment through the year.

You might think we won’t remember

As our memories start to fade,

The many lessons that you taught,

The fun handouts you made.

Truth is never ever lost

When taught right from the start,

Every lesson that you planted

Lies dormant in the heart.

Our memories may fade with time

But what you lodged will grow,

The Spirit will confirm the truth

From lessons long ago.

Though we’re growing up and moving on

We won’t forget all you’ve done

To shape our growing hearts and minds

Around the Holy One.

We will miss you so much next year!

Thanks for being the best Nursery teacher ever!

With Love,

The Stewart Twins

Poem by Jenn Stewart

December 18, 2006

The Rest of the Story

When we left South Dakota, it wasn’t by choice. After settling into life near the Airforce base, enjoying trips to the lake, a wonderful house with an unfinished basement in which to grow, and a brand new Toyota Tundra, life was picture perfect for about a year and a half. I can still remember the feeling I had every night going to bed in that home. My heart was bursting with gratitude for all our blessings and I thanked God for our wonderful life. Then one day my husband lost his job, and everything changed.

For three long months, I sent out resumes all across the US for my husband. As we struggled to make ends meet (I was not working at the time either – the twins had been my full-time job), we watched as our boat was repossessed, our truck was repossessed, and our home went into foreclosure. It was such an unexpected turn of events. As full as my heart had been, it felt equally torn apart. Finally, we got the long-awaited news. He not only had one job offer – but two! Life was taking us to either North Dakota or Wyoming, whichever gave my husband a start date first. Thank God for tender mercies. We ended up near those beautiful Big Horn Mountains for the next ten years, the place we still call “home.”

My husband ended up moving to Wyoming and starting his new job as the girls and I tried to sell our home back in South Dakota. Finally, just prior to the foreclosure being finalized, we sold our home, saved our credit, and made the move to a rental home in Wyoming that eventually became our own.

This is the back-story of the above poem. When we landed in Wyoming, I had never left my girls in the care of anyone other than my husband – ever! So, it was no surprise that there were some tears shed when I dropped them off in the new church nursery for the first time (in SD we were the nursery leaders, so they were used to being with us). It was so bad, the twins made themselves vomit into the trash can that first week because they were crying so hard (yes, I went back in to sit with them when it got that bad). I think there were a few more weeks of dry-heaving before they finally got used to being away from mom. Needless to say, I was very grateful they had such a wonderful and loving nursery teacher who was so much fun with the kids. In time, they grew to love going to nursery and it was all because of the love they felt from Sister Buchanan. I knew I wanted to do something special for her when the time came to move on. So, I bought her a bouquet of flowers and printed out the above poem on card stock, with the photo of the twins you see above at the bottom of it. I nestled the poem within the flowers and gave it to her after their last class together.

Have you ever given a gift to someone else and pretended it was from your child? Has someone ever helped your own children through a difficult life transition? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.