Object: None, though two possibilities include a cereal bowl and a donut.

Lesson: Differences; tolerance.

It seemed to me, as I thought about this text, that the best way to get its message across to young children would be to discuss with them what they each ate for breakfast; surely they would not all have eaten the same thing. But I failed to factor in one detail of the morning's activities: during the church school hour there was an all-church breakfast. Of course, by the time I realized this, my route to helping the children discover the meaning of the text was already planned, so I followed it despite the unexpected turn events had taken. It is the nature of grace that following my intuition, what my heart said was right, did, in fact, accomplish the desired objective.

As soon as …