Good morning on this cold Thanksgiving Day morning and I trust all is well in your world. When you really think about those last few words, "all is well in your world," it takes on a much deeper mental tallying of what is truly important in one's life, doesn't it? At my church last evening we had our traditional Thanksgiving Eve service and it was a wonderful, warm experience. One of the testimonial videos that was played was of an elderly lady in my church that is in hospice and knows her days on this earth are fewer from brain cancer. Listening to her and watching her on the video touched me deeply about the phenomenal wonder of this thing called life and how precious it surely is but even more was I reminded how just how quickly these days tick off in one's life.
One of the things I love about teaching is getting to be around young people as they scratch and posture for a better starting point for a life yet unfolded to them. They know not what lies ahead. Already so many have made bad choices with their lives, their bodies, their decisions but they are there, in school for whatever the motivation, seeking to "better" themselves. The association with these young people lifts me, challenges me, makes me want to be the best I can be for them for they deserve to have exposures and role models they can choose to seek to be.
I think I have realized in the last three or four years that the blessing of teaching is less about the teaching and more about the opportunity to let these folks see someone the respects, challenges, pushes, seeks to be a very positive, Christian role model that they, in some way and in their own timing, might decide to seek to want to understand that role model better. I realize that process is the most effective means I have to be able to be something more, much more, to my students than just lecturing. That, for me, is powerful and so rewarding. It takes more energy, more effort, more acceptance but each increment of "more" is so rewarding in so many ways.
Just yesterday another tragic example of the world in which these young folks reside in our new century was revealed to me when a student told me of addictions, failed relationships, no family role models he could be proud of and this sense of desperation about what to do. Far too many times have I been exposed to students carrying so much baggage. As I write this I have former students in Federal prison for wrong choices. That, the many, tears at my heart so painfully. But then I realize that all of that is part of this thing called life and we all have to learn to live it in our own unique, individual way. We all have baggage. We all have issues. We all can choose to blame or we all can choose to rise above our lot in life and seek a brighter ray of sun on our future. I see far too many examples of young students at age eighteen or twenty that have already just given up and have accepted that the bad is just their life and there is nothing they can do. That mentality is so wrong and so destructive and demeaning.
Life is a gift; a GIFT! When I see or hear evidence that the gift is abused or taken for granted and washed into blaming others or the situation, instead of facing the horizon of opportunity and driving hard for that opportunity, choose to turn to drugs, alcohol and expecting the government to carry them for they see it so rampantly, I am pained at the heart. When my students hurt, and many are hurting, I hurt. The problem I have is that in most cases I am relegated to the sidelines to pray for them and their choices and decisions or, worst case, recovery. Too many times I have been involved in suicide issues during my teaching tenure. That still completely causes me to retort in shock for that is something, an act of such robbery of God's gift to Man, that I cannot rationalize nor understand. I would venture in my classes, the great majority of my students know directly people in their lives that have or have contemplated suicide. That staggers my mind!
Our world is afloat with Satan's handiwork. Our world is a cauldron of hate and hurt. Our world has always been that way I believe for that is precisely why God chose to destroy his Creation with the flood due to the level of godlessness and corruption and immorality. When I see or read daily of the mass killing of unborn children via abortion, the issue of same-sex marriages which is counter to what God gave us as a principle of what marriage is, the escalation of horrific crimes, our national "heroes" fallen, our political leaders inept; is it any wonder that our younger generation views their world ahead of helpless and hopeless?
I will close my Thanksgiving Blog with this reality from my heart! Our world and our life are gifts from a God that loves and wants the best for us. People are our greatest resource and friendships and relationships are crucial to right mental and emotional development. Aberrant lifestyles skew that process negatively. Children need parents, a father and a mother. Children need role models. Children are more and more the victims of a corrupt and fallen generation fueled by drug use, ill fated relationships and anger and frustration. Please, please, please know that on this Thanksgiving Day my greatest prayer and hope is that the members of our global village will seek a loving and living God and His principles about life and marriage and family.
I wish each of you reading this my very best but the greatest gift of this Thanksgiving time, I believe, is to seek a way to encourage someone in your world that is struggling for the light of day and life. Thank you for your many comments I receive and thank you for being such an integral component of my life. I am blessed and I know it! You are such a part of that blessed.
ENCOURAGE SOMEONE THIS DAY!
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