I have been a Christian now for about 25 years. I was not raised in church so the first recollection of any knowledge of Jesus was around the age of nine. I was the product of a “van ministry” at the local Baptist church.  Which basically meant that my parents didn’t go and weren’t gonna take me and drop me off either. I was picked up and dropped off by two of the kindest people I had ever known (at least by the age of 9). At this church,  I learned that God loved me, that Jesus died for me and that Father Abraham had many sons….and I was one of them…even though I was a girl. I learned every song, memorized every bible verse and shouted to the top of my lungs answers to any questions  that were asked in children’s church. “Why?” you ask, well, prizes of course! They gave a prize for everything:  Being the loudest, memorizing John 3:16 and Phillipians 4:13, knowing the hand motions to Jesus Loves Me. And contests!!! Wow, who knew that being a Christian was so competitive! We had a bubble blowing contest, submarine sandwich eating contest, even a contest on looking up scripture. Sadly, I never won a contest. I had just started learning to blow bubbles, but since gum wasn’t allowed at my house I wasn’t progressing too good at that time and sub sandwiches weren’t really my thing.  Now if it had been a bacon eating contest, now that would have been me all the way! And the scripture looking up thing, let me just say that I didn’t have a bible at home, I couldn’t pronounce half of the names and I couldn’t keep straight what was in the old testament and what was in the new testament. But it was during these years that I look back and remember how great I felt being at that church. It was nice. It was peaceful. Everyone was kind and loving to me. Until the boy on the van. He was picked up just like me. He was in children’s church too , but almost too old to be in there. Only, he didn’t try to learn the songs. He never did the hand motions, except to mess the other kids up. He  laughed when I tried to pronounce words like Leviticus and Corinthians. He was the reason I tried my best to sit on the front seat of that church van, right behind Mr. John or Mrs. Diane, whoever was driving that day. But there were days that by the time I was picked up, that seat was full. So, to the back I went. On one particular day, we had a special celebration in children’s church. It was Easter. The bible story talked about how we are all new creations because Jesus died but arose from the tomb. We were told a story about how a mother hen protects her baby chicks under her wings. That, I learned for the first time, is how God sees us. That’s why He sent Jesus to die for us. He is the mightiest protector ever! To my sheer joy we were given a real live baby chick that day as a reminder of this protection and God’s love in sending Jesus. I often wondered since becoming an adult, where did they get so many chicks? And how many were marked return to sender? But at nine years old, I didn’t wonder where it came from, all I cared about was that it was mine!!! I was gonna be the best protector ever for this little chick. It had been placed in a small paper sack. The top was folded down but there were air holes poked in the sides. I held my sack tightly as I climbed into the church van that day.  No room up front today so I sat as far from the boy as I could get and tried to blend in to the faded blue leather.  As we bumped along the old back roads, I heard the boy threatening to have chicken and dumplings for lunch, I heard him laugh as he held his chick by the leg and watched it squirm. I felt tears building in my eyes thinking about the little chick. But I didn’t dare say a word. The boy suddenly pushed the back of my head and said, “let me see your bird”.  I just ignored him and scooted closer to the window. Sweat had popped out on by forehead and my hands were soaking wet. I don’t think I was shaking on the outside but boy was I on the inside. I gripped my paper sack tightly and silently begged Mr. John to notice what was happening two van seats behind him.  The boy didn’t give up easily. He tried to get the boy sitting next to me to swap places with him but the boy didn’t want to. (thank you Jesus).  Mercifully it was my turn to get dropped off. I stood up and squeezed my way out of the seat and held tightly to my new pet.  “Don’t worry friend” I was thinking, ” I’ve got you” .  I slid the door open and jumped out onto the dusty driveway that ended at my home.  The spring air felt so good on my face. I started walking toward my house, chick in hand. It was a little ways to get to my house but the walk never bothered me. I got almost to my front door when I realized how tight I was still holding onto the sack. I sat down on the green grass in my front yard. I gently rolled up the top of the sack and opened it wide. I reached in to grab my chick. It’s little body was still and lifeless. It took a minute to register what had happened. But when it did I let out the tears I had been holding in.  I held the soft chick up to my wet cheek and begged it to be ok. I promised it everything. A nice home. Good food. A warm bed. All the love a chick could need. But it was too late for this chick. I was so determined to get it home safely I had done more harm than good.  It took awhile for me to recover from this terrible event in my 9 year old life. My brother buried it in the back yard. And I would visit the gravesite daily. For about 3 days. But I have carried those feelings around for a long long time. Sometimes I wonder what happened to that boy. According to Dateline, he is probably a serial killer by now. I had such a big heart back then that I remember feeling sorry for that boy. I wondered if someone had been mean to him and that’s why he was so mean. I wondered did Jesus really love ALLLL the little children. But most of all I felt terrible guilt for letting that little chick down. It had not taken me long to fall in love with this little guy.  I had so much love to give but  I should have been a better protector. I didn’t even know I was hurting it. I was completly unaware that I had control of the situation, even though the boy seemed to.   I was in survival mode and I couldn’t think of anything else but getting to safety.   Little did I know this would be a recurring theme in my life. Poor little chick.