It's Time

To every thing there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven: Ecclesiastes 3:1

It’s that time again!  Time to look at my classroom and see everything neatly in its place.  The floor is shiny, the books are in order, the pencils are long and pointy and the top of my desk is clearly visible.  Its quiet and settled but not for long.  

As I stood in the doorway taking one last look before I turned off the light I smiled about how quickly the room would change and I laughed because I wouldn’t want it any other way.  Some things in life are just meant to be used and get a little messy.  It might be nice if the floor would stay shiny and the sink didn’t get all splattered up but that isn’t life.  I’ll take the commotion and the movement and the scuffing up because it means we’re moving and doing and learning and living.  I realized my faith can be a little like my classroom.  

If I wanted, I could probably institute a set of ridiculous rules to keep my room in perfect order.  We could be scrubbing the sink and floors and organizing the book shelves and cleaning desks every ten minutes to keep it fancy looking but that doesn’t seem very reasonable.  My faith isn’t meant to be pulled out and practiced only in perfect, shiny conditions.  God doesn’t love me because my life is all in good order.  He still loves me if I get a little smudged and wrinkled.  If I wanted to keep everything in order I could sit in church all day so I wouldn’t get messy but then I wouldn’t be living my faith or sharing my faith.  My faith, like my classroom, would probably do best with a “full steam ahead” philosophy.

 I save my favorite job for last; the desk note. More than a hundred times in Scripture we are referred to as God’s Beloved and I think we forget how very much he loves us.  On each desk written above the students name are the words God’s Beloved.  I sit at each desk as I write and bless it with Holy Water and pray for the student who will sit there and I pray that I will be the teacher that student needs me to be.  I ask God to remind me daily how much he loves this child so that I can love them too.  As I switched off the light I prayed a prayer of blessing over the tidy, shiny room and thanked God for this incredible work he’s called me to do.  I asked him to remind me that I am his beloved and to make me act like I knew it.  I headed to my car and couldn’t help but smile a little bigger.

A Seed To Plant:  Write the message “God’s Beloved (your name)” in a couple of places where you will see it often and then soak in the truth of that message.  It’s true when you’re shiny and when you’re not!​

Blessings on your day!