On Thursday, one of my students tells me that he did his homework, but he left it at church last night. This is a common excuse from him lately and I kind of just shook my head. (Sidenote: this student just started going to church and has probably never been to church in his life before now, I think this is great & highly encourage it.) He then proceeds to tell me that it was Ash Wednesday and shows me the bulletin as proof he was there. I said, "I know it was Ash Wednesday, I'm a Christian too!" His reply, "Mrs. Chandler, I'm not a Christian, it's a Lutheran church." Funny, right? Well, I didn't laugh since I knew this is all new to him. I tried to explain to him that there are many denominations, but that if you believe in God, then you are a Christian too. He said, matter of factly, "I know, there are Lutherans and Catherans..." At this point I was walking him to the door, smiled and told him to have a good night. Bless his heart, he meant Catholics, I think!
This student is the same student who has an extreme number of missing assignments and poor grades. The other day during intervention, he had a Bible, Catechism book & notecards on his desk. I proceeded to ask him what he was doing. Making flash cards for church! Well, that's great and all, but what about all the missing school work you could AND should be working on. I had to tell him to put it away and that now wasn't the time to work on that.
As I was telling a small group of teachers about this, they laughed and then one said, "maybe you should let him work on those notecards, at least he would be doing something." Hmm..that's a great thought, but where do you draw the line? This then leads me to my next thoughts. Wouldn't it be so much better to be able to have God back in school? Why can't we talk about Him? What if I would be able to introduce other kids to Christ and the awesome things he brings to our lives? (I know I could teach at a private school, but my point is that there are tons of kids who aren't fortunate enough to have parents that take them to Church & these are some of the kids that need Him the most). I can't imagine being in 8th grade and just now getting introduced to God, just now going to church for the first time.
I think back to my own childhood, how I took going to church and being raised in a Christian based home with good morals and ethics, for granted. How could I be so naive? Doesn't everyone go to church on Sunday mornings? Doesn't everyone go to Sunday School? Don't all families pray together before dinner and say prayers before bed? Growing up I dreaded Sunday mornings, "dad, do we HAVE to go to church?" His reply was always the same, "Erin, you GET to go to church". My brother and I would grumble, but what I didn't know, was how fortunate I was. I didn't know there were other little kids everywhere that probably really wanted to go to church, who wanted to see what we did on Sunday mornings and wanted to know who this God person was.
I hope my husband and I can instill in Flynne the "GET TOs" of life and not the "HAVE TOs". I hope we are able to raise her with good morals & ethics, and start a strong Christian foundation for her, like my parents did for me. I hope she WANTS to go to church and share what she learns with her friends. I hate that I took a lot of my childhood for granted, but I'm sure we all do, until we grow up and realize what's important & what truly matters in life.
**this post can definitely be elaborated on & I already have many different thoughts that I could add...for another day!
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