Pray it Never gets Easy.

Has your heart ever just completely sank for the world only to realize that if your human, fallible, incomplete heart hurts that much that you can not even begin to fathom how deep God, the Creator and Father's pain goes?

I am beginning my third week in the classroom and I never could have imagined how tough it would be to look into the eyes of some of my students each day-to know of the pain that is inflicted as the walk out into the world, or the depression that weighs on them within my walls. I have been a youth leader for several years now and have worked with students with eating disorders, depression, abuse aftermath, suicide attempts, self-inflicted scars-it never gets easier to see young people dealing with these things (or at least, it is my deepest prayer that it never gets easy)-but I expected my experience ease the impact a bit in the chance that I ever had to see any of these things within my students. False.

My students have been working on writing their autobiography: they were asked to think of any combination of three events or people that have impacted their very being, shaping their personality. After much thought and deliberation by many students, I was constantly bombarded with questions like:
            "Miss B., are we going to be presenting these?"
           "Miss Blackburn, who all is going to be reading these papers?"
           "Can we write about whatever we want, Miss B.?"
           "Mrs. Blackburn (no matter how many times I tell them I'm not married,it still happens)-
            is anyone other than you going to look at these papers?"

After plenty of reassuring them that I am the only person going to be looking at these papers unless I feel the need to get someone else involved, and urging them to not confess to any crimes in their autobiographies, the students have begun pouring out their hearts and fears on their papers (some more legible than others). I spend most of class time walking around pointing the talkers back on track or pushing the chair-tippers forwards, but when I get the chance to stop and read over someone's shoulder, I am frequently left speechless. I pray that it never gets easy.

The first week of school, I remember telling a friend that I preferred a school that had more "issues" and less "perfect children" than my corporation appeared. One would think that with my own coming from a school full of suicides and drug overdoses, cutting and hidden sexual harassment, I would have been more open-minded to the truth that no school is full of "perfect children"-no matter what its demographics.  Golly, how much more wrong could I have been.  

As I look over their shoulders, I am witness to an outpouring of stories centered around incarceration, death, cuts and scars, suicide attempts, depression, domestic violence and abandonment.  As I look around the room, into their giggles, smiles and incessant chatter, I can't believe the lives they have lived before entering my room. My heart returns home heavy after another day of learning more of the truth behind the attitudes and defiance. I pray it never gets easy.

I am saddened for this coming generation: one that few will not be exposed to violence and depression, one who body is often displayed for all to see, one who watches their celebrity idols die, be sent to rehab and dance like nobody should at the VMAs (but that is a different topic ;)) Today was different though-for the first time my mind wandered to the Creator of this generation and the pain He must endure each day as He watches us be slumped with reality. I can not even fathom the amount of love He holds in His heart for each of us, how great the desire to hold these hurting children in His arms and how hard it is for Him to let us be. I am grateful that He is there to comfort each of my students in their time of desperation and am left speechless at His desire to use me. 

Tonight, I will say a prayer, Thanking the Father of the Fatherless for His part, Begging Him to wrap my seventh graders in His arms, and lastly, I will Pray that it never gets easy to see their stories and to hear their grief.