Why It Matters...

Sometimes, I feel like I am living real life version of a Lord of the Rings movie. It’s a strange analogy I know, but the one thing I took away from watching the entire trilogy in one day is this: that every single thing they did on their journey mattered. Mattering is an interesting concept. On the one hand, mattering gives you a sense of purpose, but on the other hand, mattering means that your actions and words have extreme importance.  I’m a teacher. God made me a teacher… Or at least that is how the memory plays out in my head. So, when I go to work every day, I go knowing that what I do matters. Sometimes, it’s great and mattering in the lives of young people is amazing and life changing for both sides. Yet, other days, mattering is exhausting. It’s a burden. And it is totally overwhelming.

You cannot teach well without covering every facet of your profession in prayer. Not doing so is the equivalent of pulling down upon you the very yoke that God has promised to lift. Even still, the job is just plain hard. The truth is that I love these kids so much. They all have stories. It’s like the Freedom Writers movie threw up its script right into our school. There are fights. There are drugs. There are kids with horrible home lives. The weird thing is that all of these kids – rich or poor – pretty much like coming to school. Because, unlike home, school is structure and school is the wonderful distraction from whatever they face under the roof of their house… Parents fighting, parents cheating, parents drinking, parents in jail, parents that never crossed the border with their children, parents who can’t work so the kids have to… And at the end of the day, they’re still parents… Parents who, despite their obvious struggles, send us the best they’ve got, hoping for the best in us. That makes us matter.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a burden, just straight up heart aching burden for these kids. The kind of burden that wakes me up from a dead sleep and prompts me to just begin praying. It’s simultaneously invigorating and exhausting because every prayer I say or don’t say matters… I once had a co-worker who taught with the outlook of never making her problems, the kids’ problems... Which is to say that none of what impacts us in our personal life should surface and hinder our effectiveness towards those students. But really, that’s just hard sometimes… The reality is that reality does bubble up and creep into nearly everything. Especially everything you have put your whole heart and soul into. I’ll say this though, in the outside world… the one beyond the brick walls of my school, there are a whole lot of people that walk around feeling sorry for themselves because of the story they’ve got. More than anything, this place has taught me that the pity party is a waste of time. Look around, I tell myself; nearly everyone here has something just as bad or worse.

This school is not a place where we feel bad about the life we have. This is the place where we look at our obstacle and thank God we’re in a place where we have the capability to get over it. I have doubt, I have fear… But God made me a teacher to matter. I’ve been racking my brain for the better part of this year because sometimes I feel so uncommon… Why do I care so much? Why can’t I stop thinking about these kids? Why am I out with friends on a Friday night but thinking about the conversations I’m going to have with my kids on Monday? Some might chalk this up to being a passionate teacher, but it’s more than that.

God has called us to be uncommon… To be different… That moment when we pause and look at our life and it looks like everyone else, that is the moment that should really make us anxious. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve read too much Francis Chan and David Platt lately, but I mean really, aren’t we supposed to be risking everything for the sake of Christ? Shouldn’t my kids, my co-workers know me by my love? It matters, right?

Everything about the world is a risk, but am I really willing to attempt something big enough that failure is guaranteed… Unless God steps in? And so it goes with my job right now… 12 weeks deep into 120 lives and everything matters. It matters because we’re the hope. It matters because loving differently matters. And it matters because what we choose to attempt or not attempt will ultimately be of eternal value for pretty much everyone that God has put us in relationship with. So then, forgive me for being overly invested in my true work, for not having my blackboard site updated a day earlier because I spent two hours after school talking to a student about why her mom and dad both cheat on each other and never say I love you to her, or for not wanting to do anything on a Friday night because by the end of these 12 hour work days I’m truly exhausted. To the Christian, there is never a time when one part of life doesn’t spill over into another… My faith is my work is my passion is my mission is my calling is my obedience is my gift of thankfulness for a life otherwise lost but for the grace of God.

I am grateful for those that push me in this mission. That live to make Christ known in all they do. I am thankful for the uncommon people that the Lord has put in my life that have prepared me for what lies ahead, that pour into and pray over this work of eternal consequence. They are race runners and they force a challenging pace. I’m grateful to be exhausted and aware that all this will fail unless God steps in.