By: Brenda Wilkerson
“Goldfish. The rainbow kind.”
This year, when the new school year calendar showed up in the usual pile of paperwork, God’s still small voice whispered:
God: “Birthdays.”
Me: “Huh?”
God: “Write in their birthdays.”
Me: “All of them?”
God: “Buy their favorite snack and drink.”
Me: “Ohhhhhh, got it!”
And so I did. That simple, cheap calendar most people lose or throw away by now became the most valuable item on the bus — including the bus.
God: “Set alarms. Don’t let one slip by.”
Me: “Yes,Sir.”
Also me: ADHD-gifted — I knew He knew the brain He equipped me with.
The first opportunity to celebrate a birthday came within the first two weeks. I checked my calendar and found a scribbled request I could barely decipher.
Once I finally figured out whose name it was, I struck up a conversation to confirm her favorite snack — without teasing her about her handwriting.
“Goldfish. The rainbow kind.”
This girl rarely made eye contact or even a grunt as she climbed those three steps, twice a day — ten times a week, forty times a month, four hundred times a school year. When she did speak with her friends, it was usually harsh, crude, and mostly inappropriate. She’d been that way the entire school year before — quiet, closed-off, guarded in a way that seemed too heavy for someone so young. I never scolded her, because I’d witnessed how hard her life was compared to others her age.
God reminded me not to take it personally. He also impressed something heavy on my heart: there wasn’t an adult on this planet who hadn’t already broken her trust.
Then came the day. Her 17th birthday. The day I set the tone.
The first gift of the school year was delivered — Goldfish, the rainbow kind.
A small thing — a snack, a gesture, a promise kept. And that’s when I saw it: a sheepish grin breaking through her tough exterior. A flicker of the little seven-year-old still underneath it all. A sign of vulnerability she’d worked so hard to protect, cracking open at the simple kindness of being remembered.
I sat there in awe. God knew exactly what she needed to open that deeper connection.
To this very day, I keep a small bag of Goldfish tucked in a pocket behind my seat so she has access whenever she needs it — whether the hunger is physical or emotional. She eats Goldfish for breakfast and a few more on the ride home. Surprisingly, she always saves a little in her bag to make sure she has some the next day.
Within just two weeks, I was watching a side of her even she didn’t know existed.
Now, when I drop her off, I get a warm goodbye — a goofy, squinty-eyed smile and a quick double-handed wave as she passes in front of my bus to the sidewalk.
As she skips toward her trailer, rainbow Goldfish in her tummy, my soul’s eyes see it: a little girl, free and happy, pigtails bouncing, a happy heart within her circumstances.
To fully understand that very profound invitation Jesus offered to his very first disciple, is the same invitation to us all.
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Not the rainbow kind. The eternal kind.
Because a rainbow was never just a color — it was always a promise. And every Goldfish I hand out this year isn’t just a snack. It’s a small, edible covenant: I see you. I remember you. You are not forgotten. The same promise God made after the flood, tucked now into a pocket behind a bus seat, waiting to catch one more child who needs to know — they matter.
Fishers of men. The eternal kind.
Lord, thank You for calling me to be Your hands and feet to these tender, wounded souls. I am humbled and available to serve as long as You have me here.
Forever Your Servant,
Captain B – Brenda Wilkerson
