I Know You! I´m Sure I Do…

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It is such a privilege to teach teenagers and there is so often a great bond with students.
It is such a privilege to teach teenagers and there is so often a great bond with students.

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                                                                                                                                             I was out for lunch with a friend yesterday and found myself constantly looking at the young man behind the bar thinking, “I´m sure I know you!” He looked really familiar.  Eventually we spoke and he reminded me of his name and it all came flooding back. 

All the faces in that class of teenagers I had taught several years previously.  He told me what a few of them were up to now and I felt waves of emotion as I remembered them as students and now saw him so grown up.  It was his eyes that had first caught my attention.

As a teacher you very quickly learn to read people and there is often so much to see in their eyes – should you choose to look.  You can see joy, see that they are bursting to tell you something.  You see pain, hurt, tiredness, You see that moment when they “get it,” hesitancy when they are unsure but want to have a go, and then there´s the sadness and sometimes despair when they just don´t get it at all. 

You see the real humour, some mischief or other lurking behind a smile. You absolutely see when they are up to something! Then there´s the “please help me” look that says “but don´t let anybody know that I´m actually asking for help!!”  There´s the kids who get the “red herrings” you chuck into the works and the ones who get your humour and fling a verbal right back at you while some of the more attentive ones are going “whaaaat?” having completely missed it. Fun times. I loved it. 

It is such a privilege to teach teenagers and there is so often a great bond with students.  Oh my goodness, there is sooo much non-verbal communication going on with so many all of the time you are with them.  I loved teaching and totally enjoyed 99.9% of my time in the classroom.  Every single day I prayed for the kids in my care, some days I prayed a lot for them and their families. 

The hardest thing for me was not being able to say Goodbye.  The kids must have thought I had just abandoned them.  One day I was there, and the next I was gone and I was never given the opportunity to come back and say anything.  That was so sad. 

In my case it was illness but the kids didn´t know that. It was this time of year actually – how odd that I should meet “X” yesterday and all this came flooding back. There was no closure.  After many years I was just gone.  It was more than sad.

I am so much better now, several years later, pretty much back to normal.  I wrote a poem at one stage and my physio asked if I would print it for him to put up on his door as a warning to others! I had written about the tears dropping on the floor from the pain as he worked and telling him that it was wrong to laugh at my pain as he found, with maniacal delight, and worked knot after knot, week after week for a long, long time.

And where does God come into all of this?  I sometimes wonder what He thinks of us all. What child am I? Which child are you? We are all so different and He is with us all of the time, not just 9 til 5 but 24/7, 365 days a year, day and night, no time off.  What does He think of Mankind now?  How does He not totally despair?  Can we, you & I, make a difference?

He does love us you know, each and every one of us has the opportunity to turn and find out more about Him.  He even knows your name!  (See Isaiah 43:1)  At some point in our lives we come to a decision to choose Him or reject Him. But how can we choose from ignorance?  If we don´t know God or anything much about Him, do we not owe it to ourselves to find out? And then choose to either accept or reject?

We can all see what is happening around the world.  There seems to be more natural disasters, more wars, more deprivation and violence.  Do you ask or hear someone asking “why does God allow this?”  Is it not man who is doing this to man?  It must break God´s heart to see, over and over throughout man´s history.  But we also know that there are many good people out there, people who care, who help.                              Each one of us makes a difference. 

Each one of us matters. Is it enough to just be a good person or does God require more of us?  God knows you. Do you know Him?

In John 14:6  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Do you know the way? Do you want to know the way?  Do you choose eternal life or have you chosen a different path?  Come visit us for Sunday service at 11am. See who we are and what we believe at pilarchurch.com

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