Coasting through the School Year--Training Wheels and Trust

Do you remember your first bike?  I do.  It was bright red, with chrome fenders.  It was a gift from my grandmother, the year I turned six.  My folks didn't have very much money back then, and so the really cool gifts often came from Grandma.  In fact, it was the first and last brand-new bike I ever got as a child.  When I outgrew it and passed it down to my younger brother, I graduated to a used Stingray with a banana seat and those really high handlebars.  But that first bike, the brand new red one from Grandma, that was something else!  It even had a horn.

It also came with training wheels, for I had yet to learn how to ride a bike.  I hadn't mastered the art of balancing on two wheels--I didn't trust that when I was in motion the bike would hold me up--and so attached to either side of the rear wheel were those extra little wheels that mark a beginner.

In time, with help from my parents, I was able to remove first one and the other of the training wheels.  But first there were some spills and fall.  A skinned knee or two.  And lots of encouraging words.  "You can do it, John!  Keep going!  Don't be afraid!  That's OK!  Get back up!"  And in time I could do it.  I could keep balance without even thinking about it.  What's the popular expression, "Once you learn to ride a bike you never forget"?

When you are a kid, of course, you can't wait to get rid of the training wheels.  They are a source of embarrassment.  You're eager to go out on your own and tool around the neighborhood.  And once you have shed then, you quickly forget how essential they were to your learning how to balance.  First you trust the training wheels themselves, the person holding the back of the bike while you ride, and finally you learn to trust the bike itself, and your own ability to stay upright.  But while the training wheels' contribution to your bike riding skills may be forgotten, the truth is you probably wouldn't be upright unless they'd been there in the beginning.

Our church's week day preschool opened for the school year today.  And like training wheels, it is designed to help create that ability to trust.  It is firmly rooted in the idea that God loves all children, indeed all people.  It is firmly rooted in the idea that God's love is unfailing, that God can be trusted.  And that love is mediated, made known, through the caring actions and supportive lessons offered up by our staff.
Our preschool is not designed to take the teaching role away from parents.  It is not designed to supplant the church as the only source of spiritual nurture.  Rather it is designed to work alongside parents, the church and many others in the vital task of nurture.  The preschool, if you will, provides the training wheels, but is
parents and others who run alongside offering words of guidance and support.  "You can do!  Keep going!  Don't be afraid!  That's OK.  Get back up!"

I pray that all our students, and students everywhere, are supported in ways that will help them learn to trust enough to be able to ride through the journey of life!