The Big Green Button

Many years ago when I was only six years into my teaching, a little episode happened at school that I have remembered all these years. I was teaching at Springstead High School in Spring Hill, Florida. It was Wednesday in late spring. My beloved grandfather had just died--the first close relative I had ever lost--and I had just broken off my engagement after providentially finding out that the person I thought I loved was by no means who he claimed to be. I was walking down the hall between first and second period when I saw something on the tile floor that looked like a squashed grape. I ignored it and continued on to the office to drop off my attendance sheet. On the way back, I saw it from a different angle and realized that it wasn't a food particle trampled by some 1500 students but a large, cloth-covered pea green button that belonged on some girl's outfit.

I still passed it by, putting it out of my mind as absurd to pick up. I would see things in the hall every day that I just left there--pens, pencils, especially. Whoever lost the button would never expect to find it again in such a large building where over a thousand students could kick it out of the way, so even if I salvaged it, it would probably remain as good as lost. I got almost to the door of the Writing Lab where I was stationed that period, when I turned back for it. Being such a strange color, it would be hard to match, and being such a large button, its absence would ruin an outfit. I would feel bad if I had lost it. I felt I should care, even though it was such a small thing. It would be contemptuous to pass it by. So, feeling a bit foolish, I bent down and picked it up, retracing my path to the attendance office. I told them my thoughts and a woman put it on her desk.

Fourth period I ran some errands during my planning period and then passed by the bookkeeper's office to fill out a form for being absent for my grandfather's funeral. The bookkeeper was busy for awhile with some students, so I just waited. As I filled out the form, I looked up at the tall girl standing at my right. I looked again, and my eyes riveted to her blouse--the same pea green color with large covered buttons. I scanned the line of buttons and saw one missing near her waist. "Did you lose a button?" She looked down at herself, "I don't know. Oh, yeah, I guess I did," she realized. "Well, I found it!"

If I had gone in the office earlier or later, I would have missed her. The timing was perfect. She didn't even know it was lost until I pointed it out to her--and I had already found it. I was filled with joy over this whole thing, as a thousand lessons from the Lord rushed to mind. One, I was faithful in a small matter, and God honored my concern over such a petty item. Is He not concerned with details of our lives that look petty to the universe? After all, Jesus said that a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Father's notice. Two, the button was found before the girl even knew it was lost. Does not our God have the answers even before we ask Him? Three, if God cares enough to bring to order such a tiny fragment of life's often jumbled puzzle, cannot He by far greater concern maneuver the events of my life for His will?

That scene was one in a million, and I felt I really needed that special touch of meaning that day, after all the emotional trauma of loss and disappointment that had been packed into spring. I don't know whatever happened to the girl or to the button, but my Father's eye has never failed to follow my footsteps, and I desire to be faithful to the One Who is so faithful to me.