My husband and my daughter are both teachers who love the kids in their classes as if they were their own. I fear and pray for them in their roles as educators, and for the kids they teach. The heartbreaking tragedy in Uvalde has shaken the world yet again, leaving people to grasp desperately for answers, for solutions to protect the most vulnerable of our society, and those who dedicate their lives to those kids. Teachers’ first thoughts are not for self preservation when something like this happens. They think “how do I protect my kids?” There’s tons of stuff flying around the internet right now and I was particularly moved by this post shared by a former teacher, who is a friend and taught my now grown daughter when she was in first grade many years ago.

The Messy Christian

20 hrs  · 

Forty…thirty years ago, we didn’t have school shootings. We had kids in pick-up trucks parked out in the school parking lot with rifles hanging in the back of their truck cabs. My dad had a gun safe that was left unlocked and I know he wasn’t the only one.

Access to guns has always been around and so has mental health struggles. This leads me to believe that there has to be something else at play here. Something that goes deeper than our laws or lack thereof.

We have an issue of the heart and, friends, God is always at the heart of the matter.

When I was growing up there was a very popular saying, “God don’t make no junk.”

I saw it all the time.

Maybe we need to be letting our kids know that now. Maybe this generation needs it just as badly as we did.

When we teach kids that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by their creator, we teach them to value life. Theirs and others.

When we teach them that one day they will be held accountable for the life they’ve lived, we teach them to own their choices and make good ones because one day they will meet their maker.

When we teach them that they were born with a purpose for their lives, we give them the reason they were created.

When we teach them that they are valuable and loved because “God don’t make no junk”, we teach them that they matter and that they are somebody no matter what anybody else says.

When we teach them that there is One who reigns supreme above their life and everybody else’s, we are teaching them that the world doesn’t revolve around them, but Him.

When we teach them that there is One who cares for them more than anyone else, we give them someone to call out to when they find themselves all alone in their bedroom wondering why anything in life even matters.

These aren’t just “feel good” things to say to someone or a false sense of hope or reality.

All of creation points to our creator and we do no one any favors ignoring that fact. When we as a people get back to the heart of the matter…the heart of the Father…I believe we will truly start to see the change we all desire.

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

“This speech-policing is profoundly clumsy, creepy and wrong, often reinforcing bias. Invasive tech like this undermines privacy, freedom of expression and increasingly freedom of thought.”
— Read on legalinsurrection.com/2022/04/google-rolling-out-function-forcing-inclusive-language-on-users/

Recently turned seven-year-old me lays on the floor of my brand-new bedroom in our brand-new house in Alvin. This room is so much bigger than my old bedroom in the little wood rent house on the other side of town. It has clean white walls that smell of fresh paint, and avocado green carpet—a tightly sculptured carpet that feels rough against my cheek if I lay my head down without care. In the years to come, I’ll suffer more than one carpet-burned knee while playing on the floor with the baby sister who will make an appearance when I’m almost ten. 

            Along the wall facing the street is a single window underlined by a window seat. The seat intrigues me, but sadly it’s too high to actually sit on. Over the years it will serve a multitude of purposes: a place to display books, toys, and knickknacks. At one point, my bed will be situated under that window seat and late at night I’ll hold my breath when I think I hear footsteps in the grass outside. I’ll finally figure out it’s the sound of my hair rubbing against my pillowcase, and I’ll feel mighty foolish. For now, though, the seat is unadorned and ripe with potential.

            I am most excited about the closet across the room from where I lay. It’s a walk-in closet. I’ve never seen such a thing, especially a closet with a BOOKCASE built on one wall. The shelves are empty now, but I imagine all of my books filling those shelves once Mama and Daddy bring everything over from the old house. I’ve already brought one of my books: The Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales. Mama said I could read in my new room while she and Daddy took care of business. I carefully open the red clothbound book and begin to read the story of The Six Swans to the best of my first-grade abilities.

***

            Recently turned fifty-three-year old me lays on the floor of my old bedroom in my old childhood home in Alvin. It’s been a long year of budget conscious renovations and a lot of sweat equity after inheriting a house that showed every bit of its forty-six years. The brand-new carpet is beige and much softer than the sculptured stuff that insulted my knees so long ago and the walls have been freshly painted a neutral shade chosen by my forty-two-year old “baby” sister. Our decisions and hard work have paid off: we have a buyer.

            There’s no evidence of the federal blue walls I had when I was twelve, or the cream walls trimmed with dark green woodwork my sister chose when she switched rooms after I left home. With paint brushes and rollers, we have erased the painted purple clouds sprinkled with glitter meant to cheer her kids up after the three of them moved back home for a while following her divorce.  

            My mind wanders back through the years as I rest my chin on the back of my hands, staring at the crisp, clean white painted baseboard no more than a foot from my face. The room is as empty as it was when I was seven years old, and I wonder what the new owners will do—how will they make it theirs? I roll over and look across the room to that bookcase in the closet. It occurs to me that all these years I’ve called it a bookcase, and it was probably meant to store shoes and purses and folded clothing. 

            I hope the new owners call it a bookcase, too.