Dare 14: Love Intercedes

Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.  3 John 2

Dare 14: Love Intercedes 

"You cannot change your [students].  As much as you may want to, you cannot play God and reach into their heart and mold them into what you want them to be....    
Insanity has been described as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  But isn't that what happens when you try to change your [students]?  It's frustration at the highest level.  At some point you have to accept that it's not something you can do.  But here's something you can do.  You can become a 'wise farmer.'  A farmer cannot make a seed grow into a fruitful crop.  He cannot argue, manipulate, or demand it to bear fruit.  But he can plant the seed into fertile soil, give it water and nutrients, protect it from weeds, and then turn it over to God.  Millions of farmers have made a livelihood from this process over the centuries.  They know that not every seed sprouts.  But most will grow when planted in proper soil and given what they need."  

Just like not all the seeds will sprout, not every student will be changed by your attempts to love.  But the reason for going through the love dare with your students is not so each of them will change.  The reason you are going through the love dare is to stretch yourself to love as God has called us to love.  Even if you don't see a change in one student this year, hopefully you'll see a change in your heart.  And chances are, if you are truly trying to carry out each dare, your students will be affected.  You may not see the change in them now, and you may never know just how much your love for them touched their hearts... but it will happen.  "But you won't be able to do this alone.  You will need something that is more powerful than anything else you have.  And that is effective prayer."  
And boy, do our kids need prayers.  Not a day goes by that my heartstrings aren't pulled by a glimpse of a students' home life.  This won't surprise you, but I tend to be a forgetful person, and unfortunately, often times I simply forget to utter up a prayer for them.   It is my prayer that God hears my deep concerns for each of them as prayer.  
It is my desire, and I know it is God's desire, to pray more fervently for my students.  I truly believe it is one of the most loving things we can do for them.  


So this week, take time to pray for your students' hearts.  Pray that God would work in their lives and that you might be given opportunities to speak to their hearts.  


love you all.  praying for you as well. 

woa.

No one deemed it necessary to tell me that the weekend came and went and now suddenly it is Tuesday and apparently I had no idea.  

YIKES! 

Grace it is, my friends, grace it is.  

God bless. Have a good week.  Don't give up on me :) 

And again...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I only had two days with students this past week due to snow days... I know its going to take me a while to be conscious of practicing grace, so here we go again...
Praying for all of you. 

Dare 13: Love Offers Grace

I realize that offering grace and letting them start fresh is very similar, but I've really been challenged lately with what it looks like to offer our students grace.  

We are in the middle of a series at church over Galations 2:20.... "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."  

Today we discussed the balancing act that is freedom and legalism.  It is easy to live in either of these extremes and extremely difficult to find the right place on the pendulum.  We either judge ourselves against others making us seem okay or we live a life that is spent entirely on ourselves and our "rights."  Romans 6:23 says the "wages of sin is death..." and all throughout the gospels we're told of how Jesus came for us to die for us.  Without Jesus, we have no rights.  We don't have the "right" to be treated better by people... we actually deserve to be treated worse, because we have treated God worse... BUT GOD (probably my favorite two words together) still offers us GRACE... over and over and over and over and over... you get the picture.  

And Galations 2:20 says that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me ... well, then I am called to be offering the same grace God has offered to me.  So, if i really understand God, I will ALWAYS respond out of grace, NO MATTER WHAT you've done to me, I will give you grace because I've done worse to God and he still gives me grace.  

Do I do that?  Big negative.  Was I guilty of not doing that 5 seconds after I left church this morning?  Unfortunately, yes.  

And I just can't seem to wrap my mind around what it looks like to offer this grace to my students?? How can I offer them grace over and over and over again and still expect them to respect me and the guidelines of the classroom and school?  
I understand that there is such a thing as tough love and that God loves that way too... It is just really hard for me to know what it looks like to apply all of this in a way that is pleasing to God and works in the classroom.  Not that I don't offer grace to my students ever... but let's be realistic in saying that I definitely don't offer them grace after X amount of offenses... 

So my dare for the week is to really focus on what it means to offer your students grace.  Pray that God would provide ways for you to offer them grace and that He would open your eyes to His grace in your own life.  

I know that there's a good amount of you that read this, I get the stats on here.  Most of you never comment, which is fine, but I'm asking that you would share with us all how you have learned to offer grace in your classroom or in your daily lives... 

Praying you have a wonderful week and that God would bless your socks off! :) 
 

Dare 12: Love Lets Them Start Fresh

And after a long reprieve... here we are again!   Hopefully I didn't lose you along the way.  Things got a little crazy around Thanksgiving with my husband and I moving to a new home and then being without internet for what seemed like forever! 

I know many of you started back with kiddos today... our district is lucky enough to have a work day the first day back after break, so I was able to make copies and set my lesson plans in place today.  I'm so very thankful to be able to ease back into the groove of things. Breaks always seem to spoil me a little too much :) 

I think I'm going to have to start getting a little creative with our dares.  The further you get into the book, the "deeper" the kind of love it talks about.  

So, my dare to you this week is to let your kids start fresh.  Part of the work day today included going over all my kid's grades from last semester and double checking them before I imported them for grade cards.  Browsing through some of their grades, I found myself getting frustrated all over again at their lack of effort.  It made me dread tomorrow.  And then, I sat through a meeting where we discussed our repeat offenders for lunch detentions.  (Let me tell you, I was really looking forward to tomorrow after that one.) 
I could feel my negativity welling up and realized that I needed to cut it out!  So I told myself that I was going to make tomorrow be a good day just by having a good attitude.  I'm going to let my students start fresh in my book. Those repeat offenders deserve grace just as much as the others.  So, my goal will be practicing grace and helping my students feel like they can start fresh and move forward.  I'm excited!  I just know that some of those kids are going to jump at the chance of a clean slate.