This is a Test

I have a reputation as a hard teacher.

I also have a reputation for being fair and fun. That seems like a pretty good mix to me, but today I am painfully aware of the hard part.

Today is Summer Reading Test Day, and almost all of the students in this class sat in these seats last year. They know me. They know my tests. They know my expectations.

So they are sweating.

At the beginning of class, we prayed together. When I handed out the test, I said, “I’ll be praying for you while you take your test.” But still, they are sweating.

They write feverishly about The Old Man and the Sea, about The Glass Menagerie, about Fahrenheit 451. They bubble in A-B-C-D while thought bubbles above their own heads grow and rise and pop again and again. They check the upside-down clock on my wall. They reread what they have written and edit. They ask for clarification. They lean intently over their desks, noses to a literary grindstone.

I usually use this time to learn names, writing them over and over again as I look at faces, reading the tidbits of information they wrote on 3x5 cards for me the first day of class. But there are few new faces, so that doesn’t take long.

As I go through my information cards, looking for specific details to connect me to them, I begin to pray for each one, just as I had promised.

And then I think, “What if I let each one KNOW I have prayed specifically for him, for her, by name?”

I get out little post-it notes and begin writing:  “God, Bless Ellis as he tests.” One row at a time, I write notes of prayer. And then I put them on their desks. A few look surprised. One especially confident fellow begins to tear up. One girl, whose answer to “What else do I need to know about you?” was “Pray for me to excel in this class” smiles up at me when I drop that note onto her desk. 

This is a test. Theirs was over classic literature. Mine was over prayer and promises and powerfully changing the spirit of another person with just a few words. Theirs won’t matter in three months; mine will last an eternity.

I think I passed.

Now, excuse me while I unleash my red pen on these essays so that we can move on to the next hard lesson.

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.

What a Headache!

I don't want to complain; I try not to whine in such public forum. But today, I am blinded by the littlest light, wincing at the slightest sound. Haloed vision. Nausea.

Yeah, I know. It's a migraine. The question is Why?

Some attribute the affliction to hormones, some to stress, some to weather, some to certain foods. I haven't tracked my diet enough to link anything to this last possibility, but all the other stuff is a go: this week has been one of the most difficult of my life, with changeable skies (literal, metaphorical, and biological) aplenty -- and it's only Wednesday.

Whatever the reason, the fact is that life is just hard sometimes. And with hard times come natural side effects: intense headaches, uncontrollable tears, gastric distress, thunderous rain... and newfound strength.

Strength from new wisdom, from old friends, from prayer, from the release of screaming at God, from giving in to His Providence. Strength that wasn't there before. Strength that will come in handy later.

Lord, for this new wisdom, I thank you. When my students are suffering, remind me to direct them to your strength, to guide them toward you when they are in intense pain. Be my strength both today in my own weakness and throughout this coming year when they need me to hold them up to you. Amen.