12 Hours

In the next twelve hours I will

pray.

brush my teeth.

sleep... dreaming of rows of khaki and plaid clad teenagers, carrying unmarred notebooks and pens with full barrels of blue and black ink.

shower and dress -- what to wear on this most auspicious day?

slurp a cup of coffee and take another along.

check the morning announcements.

greet last year's learners in the hallway on their way to new courses -- a pat on the back, a high five, even an occasional hug.

guide the first 22 students to their seats in Room 214, take attendance, pray, issue books, and ask them to spill just a little of that fresh ink onto fresh paper.

send them on their way to 2nd period.

Unless I don't.

The same could be true of the next 12 months:

No matter the course I map out,

Some surprises are inevitable.

Planning is good; trusting that God knows what He's doing is BETTER.

Turning Up the Heat

The thermometer has taunted us for weeks now, sliding easily up to and over the 100* mark, registering heat indices in the 120s. It's dangerously hot, causing illness and fatalities. Air conditioners work overtime while I have rested for two months, taking a Sabbath Summer. This was my seventh summer here in Memphis so, despite the heat, it was time to rejuvenate.

But school starts next week, so Summer must be over.

As I have sat through this past week of in-service, I was reminded of what a great job I have: I work with people who love God and love children, who want more than anything else to train young people to live godly lives in an ungodly society. We have talked about that one goal more than almost anything else this week -- how to set academia ablaze with spirituality.

We have laughed. We have sung. We have shed tears, sharing what scraps of kleenex were tucked between Bible pages. We have written lesson plans that will challenge some and bore some others. We have tossed old books and issued textbooks. We have read accreditation standards and printed thousands of syllabi. We have moved desks and scraped last year's gum. We have sat on uncomfortable chairs during meetings and eaten lunch slowly for the last time until June. We have prayed -- sometimes together in a meeting, sometimes alone in our classrooms, sometimes with folded hands, sometimes holding the hands of beloved colleagues to the left and to the right, sometimes in a supportive embrace.

And those prayers have just begun. They will resonate all year -- these conversations with God, these hasty pleas between classes and breaths of thanksgiving at the victories that come from working with teenagers, not to mention the agonizing, heart-wrenching petitions on behalf of so many. Tomorrow morning, in fact, every single student and every single employee will be lifted in prayer. Teachers and administrators, rolls in hand, will gather to pray, sending the name of every member of our school family to the Father.

That means someone will pray for me.

And so I add this to my countless list of blessings. Eagerly anticipating the changes I will witness in the lives of 84 students, I am grateful that someone else is watching for the changes in me, even when those changes come slowly by degrees.

We are yours, Lord -- every act, every word, every choice. Fill us with your holy fire. Warm our hearts with your love and purify us in your divine crucible. Touch our lips with the coal that will temper our words, and turn our eyes always to your glory and your grace so that our lives show others the way to you. amen.