Refiners Fire.

You know what makes you vulnerable. Teaching broken kids. There is no hiding how difficult it is. It sands you down so the beautiful and the ugly...the real and the raw...shine through. How you can love so much and be so tired...how you can't do it, you're not good enough...but how you can't give up. It can (it often) requires you to plead with others to come alongside of you because you CANNOT do it on your own. Some days you're more diamond in the rough and some days you're just scratchy chalk on archaic slate. After your umpteenth come to Jesus talk with the umpteenth student, after you've used up all your coping skills and you start to look to the "Social - Emotional Skills Wall" that you designed for the kids...so you can draw ideas for yourself before you melt-down, after you've eaten your 21st lunch of gold-fish crackers, after you pour every ounce of you into ONE lesson plan...and still score twos (even though nobody can score that you're changing lives)...you have no choice but to be vulnerable. I'm learning so much about myself because of teaching...I'm just praying that like gold, this refining fire produces something beautiful.

Even In My Greatest Moment

You are infinitely more wise than I am in my greatest moment.  I fall against your patience and sovereignty and a find a well of peace and grace for my weary soul.  In you, all of my toil and striving cease as you whisper, "You are more than enough in me."

As the master teacher you are everything my students never knew they needed.  You are consistent in your boundaries and faithfully present.  You meet my needs and guide me with your brilliant and powerful right hand.  In you, my curiosity and awe for life is endless because in and through you, the gloriousness of all things is a mysterious life blood....I am never satisfied.

You are the picture of perfect parenthood.  Your love, it runs painfully deep.  Your patience is unmeasured.  My pursuit of their hearts...it's a familiar feeling because of your pursuit after mine.  They way you recklessly pursue me, the way you mourn my selfish decisions and the way you rejoice in my accomplishments though they pale in comparison to you and your ultimate glory.

Help me relinquish them to your love and sovereignty as you draw me nearer...to know that your hand is so much more powerful than I can ever fathom...heal, restore, protect, hold.