Today, I was attempting to teach a bunch of three year-olds Spanish and was having a heck of a time. The plan was simple. Every child was to receive a little flag made out of felt and paint sticks. Since the goal of the lesson was to learn the colors, I had yellow flags, red flags, blue flags, brown flags, purple flags, and green flags. Knowing that the kids would be upset about not getting their favorite color flag, I made this big “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit” speech about the distribution of the flags. Totally futile.

Here’s how it went down:

Me: Now, I am going to hand you a flag. If I give you a flag and you don’t like the color, do not look up at me with weepy eyes and say, “But I wanted a different color.” Don’t worry….everyone will have a turn holding all of the flags. Does everyone understand?

Children: Yes!

Me: Ok, so should we throw a fit when Miss Katie gives you a flag?

Children: Noooooooo!

Me: Muy bien. (Begin to distribute flags)

Child 1: Miss Katie, I don’t like black. I wanted a lellow one. (Child 1 begins to cry)

Child 2: NOOOOOO!!!! I wanted purple!! (Child 2 stomps off to the other side of the room)

Child 3: How come she got red and I got brown? (Child 3 points to friend’s flag and then throws brown flag at me)

I would continue the story with quotes from the other seven children, but I’ll spare you the redundancy. Needless to say, nobody liked the flag they were given. I ended up collecting the flags and putting them back in the box, abandoning the activity altogether. Apparently these children have yet to be informed that life is not fair.

About three weeks ago, I was in a major car accident on a busy highway here in Dallas. After watching my car dragged off to the junk yard, I sent out a “close call” email to friends and family, thanking God for sparing my life and the lives of my passengers. I had no idea that my “close call” car crash was actually going to be a much bigger deal than I had imagined. Certainly, I’m thankful that we all walked away with no real physical trauma, but I was not prepared for the emotional turmoil that the wreck would cause. After weeks of insurance problems, stacks of paperwork, tough financial decisions, annoying car salesmen, incompetent police officers, thousands of dollars in medical bills, countless hours of missed work, anxiety about driving on the highway, and many, many sleepless nights, I’m exhausted.

And I keep on asking myself, “Why did God let this happen?” It’s just doesn’t seem fair.

Tonight I was thinking that perhaps my rantings about how unfair this car accident was are not that unlike the temper tantrums that my kids threw about their flags. As the teacher, it seems silly to me that I didn’t get to teach my kids anything today because they were too wrapped up in complaining about the color of their flags. I mean, really. It’s just a flag. A flag for a game that lasts about five minutes. My short-sighted three year olds couldn’t imagine that some bigger plan might exist for those flags. A plan to teach them something that might stay with them for the rest of their lives. After all, they probably won’t remember ten years from now if I gave them a red or a brown flag, but they certainly will remember the difference between “rojo” and “café”.

Maybe God sees me in a similar way. Perhaps when I look up to the sky and scream “it’s not fair!”, I look about as silly as a three-year old crying about an “ugly” brown flag. In the end, God knows that the trial is not nearly as important as what I learn because of it. He is alpha and omega, beginning and end. He already knows the purpose that this tragedy (and others) will play in my life. And ten years from now, I may vaguely remember the stress associated with this whole ordeal, but I will clearly remember the way He carried me through.

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33