January 20, 2023
“So, how are your students this year?”
My eyes cast down, I took a deep breath, and my head began to nod. “Each one is a child of God,” I replied.
We were sitting in the Missouri Baptist University Dale Williams Fine Arts Center, grappling with one of those icebreakers we educators love to use. My student teacher for the semester and her coordinating professor had just introduced themselves. We had barely exchanged names before the facilitator prompted us to talk about our students and what we wanted for the coming semester.
“Each one is a child of God” earned sardonic chuckles and head nods in response. Both of the women with whom I sat either thought I was joking around or lying through a gritted-teeth smile. They probably thought I had “terror children” and I was covering up the mess with a nicety.
The only thing is, I wasn’t.
As I watched their responses, I knew I had to elaborate. I snuck a glance at the professor’s kind face and saw the question in her dark eyes. “They have their challenges, but they are all good kids. I just love them. Every one.” I thought for a moment. “Even when they don’t make good choices. Each one is somebody’s baby, or sibling, or grandchild. Every kid that walks through my door belongs to God.” I took a breath. “Remembering that reminds me to love them when loving them isn’t easy.”
I paused again, checking in on how my new friends were responding. Should I go on? I silently prayed. In their eyes, I saw them sorting through my words with sincerity, grappling with the very real answer I had just given.
I heard His voice, and, following it, I went on. “They’re not perfect!” I blurted out. “I think COVID had a huge effect on kids – not just academically, but even more so socially and in how they are maturing. They are just so immature.” My hands rose from my lap and began pushing an imaginary brick wall away from my chest, as they often do when I find myself verbally describing a tough obstacle I’m currently facing. “Nine months doesn’t seem very long to adults, but to a 7th grader? It seems like forever! And those nine months of shut down, summer break, and virtual school happened at what I believe is one of the most pivotal moments in my sophomores’ lives – when they are normally growing and learning a TON of social cues – during their 7th and 8th grades. They just missed out on so much learning and social maturation during that time. So now, they are a little behind academically, yes, but what’s really standing in the way of their progress is that they aren’t mature enough to handle just being in school.”
My audience of two was quiet. I paused for a moment, then continued. “One of the things I’m most excited about is that once Linda is running the classroom, I’d like to pull aside some of those kids who are so behind and try to catch them up one-on-one.”
I glanced up to see two women of God, one seasoned, one hopeful and fresh, both called to the same profession as I am, contemplating the task I just put before them by sharing it out loud. I now wonder how my explanation resonated with those two women in that moment. Did they see the same obstacle course I saw? Did they realize they had just asked me to state and explain my guiding philosophy in my career?
Every day, I feel like I’m flying. Maybe not every single moment (let’s be real here! Nothing on Earth is perfect) but I’m one of those people who, when asked what I do, can always say truthfully, “I love my job!” This is because being a teacher isn’t a job. It’s my calling. God planted in my heart the desire to serve others when I was born. As I grew, I found that watching others experiment, grow, and earn their learning got me all fired up. Every. Single. Time. My adrenaline rushes when I see someone pushing, working hard, focusing, and finding stores of strength within themselves. It’s one of the most humbling and tear-worthy experiences for me when I know I played a part – even a tiny part – in assisting another person’s accomplishment. I absolutely love the variety of personalities in the world and how all of them grow in different ways. I am addicted to waiting for the right moment to give a bit of positive feedback, then watching how just a few sincere words or one tiny action changes a person’s entire day.
God provided opportunities for me to refine this addiction throughout my life, and when I’m feeling the most tired and drained during the school year, this is what I come back to, to refill my cup. I call it my “One Tiny Thing” challenge. During the dreary winter months when everybody is tired and needs Vitamin D and spring break, just focusing on doing One Tiny Thing for at least one student a day keeps me happy and calm. I never know what it will be until it happens. It usually starts with just looking at a person, and then the words just bubble up from somewhere. Sometimes it’s walking by a student’s desk and telling him I really enjoyed reading his essay about bodybuilding, and I’m so proud of his growth as a writer. I’ve also been known to stop a random kid I’ve never met in the hall and ask what she thinks of the book under her arm (“I’ve been wanting to read that! What do you think?”) It’s also so invigorating to give a colleague a specific compliment, or relay something nice a student said about him as his previous teacher, or to just mention that you noticed he seemed a little down lately and ask if there’s anything I can do. While this may seem overwhelming, just doing one of these a day becomes easy quickly.
When difficult situations arise, I find I can always de-escalate my emotions if I remind myself that I want to serve those Children of God; while the process of resolution might not always be pretty, I find that if I ask God to show me how to use this difficulty for His Will and His Glory, the end result is more constructive than I could have imagined. Often, it is going through those difficult situations that build stronger relationships between me and my students!
I don’t have all the answers, but I think starting with seeing yourself and each person in your life as an individual precious child of God could change the world.
One of my favorite examples of this from the past school year was a student who I actually caught plagiarizing an essay. When I looked at her, I saw desperation. She didn’t cheat to insult me personally or to make my day more stressful; she cheated because she felt she had no other choice. She knew she was failing the semester, she was in lots of trouble at home, and she was resorting to plagiarism to try to climb back up out of the hole she had dug for herself. When I looked at her, I saw that writing her up wouldn’t help her get out of the hole. It would shut her down, and I was afraid of losing her.
Instead of issuing discipline and walking away, I told her that she had to come into my room during lunch to work with me on rewriting the essay. After three lunch periods of “Yes! Write that down!” and “This is good! Let’s just move it here…” we had finished that essay. She was visibly relieved and proud of the quality of the work she had produced. So, our new goal became passing the class. We began working on other missing assignments. She ended up passing the class with very few exemptions or accommodations from me. More importantly, she walked out of my room three feet taller and 100 watts brighter.
God was in those moments with us, and by trusting His instructions to serve His child, I believe I had a positive influence in her growth as a young adult. THIS is why I love my job.
Comfort is the enemy of growth. Challenge is supposed to be uncomfortable, but only challenge produces change. I won’t say that I look forward to uncomfortable conflicts, but when I experience them now, I work from a foundation of faith in the beauty God will bring us to if we follow his lead to the other side. I hope you can find this same truth in your work and personal life.
Dear Reader, I invite you to picture the person causing the most difficulty in your life right now. Perhaps it’s a co-worker, your boss, one of your neighbors, a child, your spouse. Now, tell yourself, “He is a Child of God.”
Keep picturing that person.
Say it again: “He is a Child of God.”
Zoom in on his face. What trauma has this person possibly endured to make him act the way he has?
Say again: “This is a Child of God.”
Now, I want you to picture that person, standing, but sinking into God’s loving embrace. See him in the biggest bear hug you’ve ever imagined. How does he respond? Does a tear escape his eye? Does he tighten up? Does he melt?
Say it one more time: “You are a Child of God, and God loves you.”
Rest in this moment.
Now, how does this moment change you? How will it affect the difficulty you are experiencing, and the resolution you hope to reach?
I don’t have all the answers, but I think starting with seeing yourself and each person in your life as an individual precious child of God could change the world.