To my 4th graders, In 35 hours you will be lined up outside of our classroom door waiting for me to give you directions about your very first task of 4th grade. You are at a new school, with all new teachers, a new principal, and some new kids too. I met some of you on Thursday and you told me that you aren't nervous. Well, please give me some of your bravery because - will you let me be completely honest with you for a minute? - I am so, so nervous. I've been doubling up on prayer and Excedrin Tension Headache since Thursday as my to-do list for you persists in its waxing and waning. I have been preparing to teach for the past two years and I have been preparing to teach you specifically for the past 4 weeks. There is not one detail of our classroom or my instruction that I did not think and rethink trying to decide if that detail served your best interest. But there are 21 of you and, holy crap, there is so much at stake. When I asked God why in the world he would trust me with that much responsibility, I think I might have heard Him actually laugh as He reminded me, My love, just think. Perhaps this is the moment for which I have created you. My loves, I have prayed for each of you by name and let me just tell you, I already love you so much more than you know. I can already see you growing discouraged because you can't figure out the difference between the hundreds and hundredths place. You must know how much I believe in you. You must know how capable I believe you are. I can see you stepping through the doorframe, eyes lazy with sleep because you tossed and turned last night in anxiety over our social studies test. You must know that no matter what, you will always be enough. I can hear the hesitance in your precious little voice because last year you were bullied, or kicked out of your friend group, or just didn't feel like you belonged. My dear, you are safe here. You belong here. Your voice may be little but it is powerful This year you are going to learn how to use it. So help me God, I promise to you that I will not only do my very best teach you about plot and setting, adjectives and equivalent fractions, animals, floating and sinking, but I will stop at nothing to move Heaven and Earth to protect you, love you, and care for you beyond measure. I promise to teach, lead, and love you with an open mind and open heart. I pray that you are ready to learn with an open mind and heart as I keep mine open to learn from you too. My precious little ones, God has promised me that He will always be with me. There is not a place I haven't gone where He has not been and not a day I am stepping into that He has not already seen. So while I am nervous about the next 10 months, I also have no fear. I know, I'm still not sure how the two can exist simultaneously together either. But maybe some things are not for us to understand, only to feel. I don't know what you believe but I believe that He loves you with a love so unstoppable, boundless, and endless that there is nothing you have to fear. I have asked for Him to give me His heart for each of you. I lifted each of you up by name and asked for Him to help me love you like He does. So, get ready kids. We're in for quite a year. (Excuse me while I now go rename that never-ending to-do list the, "In Order to Love You More List".)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Author4th grade teacher. Writer. Justice-seeker. Encourager. CrossFitter. John 11:40. Archives
July 2017
Categories |