Teachers

Teachers
People who stay up late at night
Weeping over other people's children
Who want to adopt the world
And make things better for those
Who have no safe home to go to

We care more than the kids do
Because we've seen more,
Our perspective is greater
And so we know that it's important
To have good language skills
And the ability to respect your boss
And do what you're told even if you don't understand
Why
We try to convince them,
But they lack perspective
So we hope and pray and fight
So that one day they will have the perspective
And the foundation
To build a good life

We work long hours
We overstress
And overeat chocolate
In the month of May
We give chance after chance
Because at the end of the day
We want our students to be successful
Even if it makes more work for us

We ache for them, our students
We yearn for them to be happy
To avoid some of the pitfalls that we fell into
When we were their age
We want them to prosper
And if our desires could make it so,
Then everyone would pass our classes
With the skills and knowledge and
Even wisdom
Necessary for them to fulfill their purposes
And find the true inner joy
Of who they were always meant to be

And if our desires could make it so
Every one of them would have a safe home
To go to tonight,
A family where they are loved and blessed
And at peace
And every
Single
Child
Would know
They are loved
They matter
They can change the world

We are frustrated
Because their success is not up to us
Even though society says that it is
But if it were, that would be trespassing
For we only have one life to live
And we cannot take control of our students
And make them, force them,
To do what we know they need to
For their futures

We learn to let go
Little by little and year after year
And I'm still learning
How to temper the passion that burns inside of me
For them
How to love them completely
Without hurting deep in my soul
With the hurts that they have
Without owning their suffering
Because, though I want to make it end,
I cannot

And I cannot do this,
Any of it,
Without faith, without Yahweh
Without trusting Him and knowing
That He has them in His hands
And He loves them more than I do
And He has made provision for them
And even though I am part of that provision
I am not its entirety

And I am blessed to be a teacher
To feel this fiery passion inside
Because I catch a glimpse
Of Yahweh's passion for all of us,
All of His creation
He wept over Jerusalem
He rejoiced to die on a cross
He would not let us be lost if it was at all within His power

And it is all within His power.
But like with my students
He cannot force us
To choose Him and His wisdom
For His perspective is greater than ours
He sees farther, so much farther beyond
And sometimes we have to respect our King
And do what we don't understand
Like go into a classroom everyday
With heartache
And pray
And be
And demonstrate in some small measure
The love of Yahweh.