Back to School Gift

It is that time of year.

Store aisles are filled with folders, paper, crayons, and pencils.  Our mail contains the best sales for school supplies.  Although they've done hours of Pinterest PD, texting, and emailing, teachers are officially meeting to prepare for classrooms full of kids.

Yes, it is back to school time!

As parents, we usually get our child's teachers a gift for Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Teacher Appreciation Day.  But what about a Back to School Gift?

As a teacher, the best (and I think only) back to school gift I have gotten was a note from a parent. It let me know that she had been praying for me and our school year. I taped it to the pullout on my desk and read it several times throughout the year.

I cherished that note.

Teachers have a wonderfully stressful job.

We love our students. We call them "our kids" - forever. We see these students in ways their parents will never see them.  We laugh with them. We cry with them.  We hug them when they celebrate and when their worlds are falling apart.

Teachers do more than teach. And to know that a parent was praying for me, praying for our school year.....that meant so much to me.

Parents, we do need your prayers.  Your children need your prayers. It is a crazy awful world we live in.  So many uncertainties. So much evil.  For some of these children the school is their safe place. The school is their guaranteed meal. The school is where they are loved and cherished.

I've come to realize in my many years of teaching that some of these students that I call "my kids" need me to teach them reading and writing.  Others need me to teach them love, compassion, and responsibility. And others, those children need to be loved and cherished and told they are indeed someone special, someone who is fearfully and wonderfully made.

So, parents, pray for us.  Pray for us to be what these precious children need us to be.  Pray for us to see them as more than a test score. Pray for us to show patience, love, and understanding while we stretch their minds and push them to succeed. Pray for us to protect them from bullies and self harm. Pray for us to see them as God our Father sees us.   Please, pray for us.

And then, I ask you this....Would you please show us grace and mercy?  We teachers are human. We mess up. We jump to conclusions. We get tired and frustrated. Life happens to us as it does to everyone. So, please, show us grace.

And then if you want to....send coffee.