Becoming Analise

It was a normal Thursday afternoon at work. I work at a preschool for three- and four-year-old students. Riley Grace is a student at my school, but she’s not in my class. I see her throughout the day, and it’s such a blessing. I love watching her grow, sharing experiences with her, and seeing her develop friendships. On this particular Thursday afternoon, Riley Grace woke up 45 minutes early from her nap. (If students wake up early, they are supposed to stay on their cots until rest time is officially over. However, Riley Grace sometimes has a hard time with this rule because once she wakes up and sees me, she wants to come talk to me…) As usual, as soon as she saw me, she walked over to where I was sitting. Our short conversation was as follows: Me: “Good morning, sweetheart. Did you have a good rest?” RG: * sleepy nod * Me: “You know, you need to go back to your cot until rest time is over? We have a few more minutes until snack, and Mama has to get snack ready for all o...

Riley Grace’s favorite Bible story at the moment is the “Tower of Babel.” It seems like a peculiar choice, but she loves it! In this story, the people were trying to build a really tall tower because they wanted to reach heaven. Successfully building this tower would display their power and dominance on the earth. The Lord did not intend for their ventures to be successful. He was not pleased with their tower and the heart behind its construction. Therefore, He confused their speech so that they could no longer communicate with each other. Their tower was not completed because the Lord stopped their efforts. While we read the story each night, Riley Grace explains that God didn’t want them to build it, but they did anyway. Every night at the end of the story, she says, “Well, I won’t build a tower.” From the story, Riley Grace concluded that building a tower was displeasing to God, and therefore, she decided that she would never build a tower because God didn’t want them to build ...