Month 3: September

Long story short, John 13:35

God exhorted me recently with something and I want to share it out.

There was an incident in one of my classes, basically a handful of honors kids did something that was not okay, and honestly I was pretty disappointed to hear that they would do that. When my school administrators found out they took over the incident and handled it very seriously and I was grateful for their support, just bummed that it happened. But of course, human beings make mistakes- it happens.

When handling the issue, one of the things they stressed to the kids is how their actions impacted their relationship with me as their teacher. And I wasn’t there, but admin told me each kid was hit hard to hear that what they did could break our trust and hinder our rapport because they didn’t mean to do that. They genuinely value their rapport with their teachers.

One kid in particular took this reality really hard and was extremely upset. So the administrator talking to her asked her if she thought that because she messed up that we no longer love her, and won’t forgive her- to which she nodded agreeing with that statement.

The kid later came to me, still outwardly upset and apologized and asked for forgiveness. Which obviously I forgave her, I felt an insane amount of compassion for her. She made a mistake. People mess up, I get it- I’ve been there.

What hit me the hardest with this is thinking about my interactions with the kids from here on out- because sure, its easy to be disappointed in them, frustrated with them, hesitant with how much I trust them and do fun things with them. I could set new rules because of it, lay down the law…etc. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes new boundaries need to be set, and relationships need to be altered to be healthy for both peoples best interest.

But after all this, all I could think of is how much my love, compassion, forgiveness, and care for them would show them what Jesus’ love for them looks like. This situation, while it sucked, is actually a very real and human way to show people that you are still loved even when you make the wrong choice. You are not loved because you are “perfect” or because of what you can “do” for someone…etc Every single person was intentionally created by God and put here for a reason, and every single person is so ridiculously unconditionally loved by Him. You do not need to earn His love- in fact, you already have it (peep Romans 5:8-10, 1 John 4:19)

The way you treat people really matters. And Christians might not always get it right- I know I don’t- but we all can surely try our best to show Jesus to others.

My hope is that people see my relationship with God, and want to pursue Him too. My hope is that people experience love from me and it points them toward Him. (especially the kiddos I work with)