This morning I woke up at 5:10 to go to bible study. One Friday morning last semester one of my students told me that she had a bible study every other week at her house. 25 of the seventh grade girls attended and a group of moms led the lesson each time. I e-mailed one of the moms, met with two of them, and decided that I would come as a guest speaker.
I'm so thankful that I got the chance to do this. I love being a teacher and getting to know each of my students but this was an opportunity I couldn't have in school. Some of these girls are currently in my class, some were last semester, many have been to FBC, a few I know just from saying hi in the hall, and there were only a couple I didn't know.
I woke up early and drove to the house with a cup of coffee and a bag of supplies. I invited Molly to come along too because I wanted the younger girls to hear from a High School girl like Molly and I wanted Molly to have the chance to share her story with these Junior High girls.
Squeezed together in the basement we talked, laughed, shared stories, read from John 15, and explained love tanks. These girls are so lucky to be apart of a group of friends like this that has the opportunity to be part of this group. My prayer is that they will support, challenge, and care for each other. I see so much potential in them and hope that they grow into that.
The girls loved the love tanks. Molls read the girls one Rae wrote her at a reunion. I explained that note was so special because Rae wrote it even though they're not best, best friends and she pointed our really specific things she loved about Molls. We challenged the girls to write notes to girls in the room that are their best friends and people that they've noticed do great things. We're all nice, kind, and funny so maybe point out other things that are special about these friends.
They went crazy writing notes and filling love tanks before we had to leave for school. As we were climbing into cars I heard girls saying, "Get in, hurry up, I want to read my love tanks." All day at school girls came and told me that they had so much fun and that they loved their love tank notes. What if this act of telling our friends why they're special and what we love about them became a habit? What if we thought less of ourselves and more about building other people up?
...
Tonight I went to see Soul Surfer with Coll. After Livvie wrote me, " Hiiiiii!!!! You NEED to go see surfer girl. Not only is it so inspirational but I was sobbing. And text me with in the first 10 minutes of the
Movie, you'll be freaking out," I had to go. She was right. I loved every second of this movie and you must go see it. This is the true story of Bethany Hamilton who lost her arm in a shark attack. Against all odds she learned how to surf after the accident. I cried through most of the movie and I don't remember the last time I shed a tear in a movie theatre. I loved Bethany's courage, her family and friends, her youth pastor Sarah, and every song in the movie.
Here's a sneak peek:
"Who would have thought that teaching a little kid to surf would teach me that surfing isn't the most important thing in the world. Love is. More powerful than any tidal wave. More powerful that any fear."
"What am I supposed to do now?
You're supposed to enjoy it. All of it. For the rest of your life."
"I've learned that life is a lot like surfing because if you get caught in the impact zone you've got to get back up because you never know what may be over the next wave. And if you have faith, anything is possible. Anything at all."
Sometimes you need to be reminded that hope and love and passion and perseverance and faith are real and possible and alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment