It is early on Good Friday morning. Here we get a holiday on Good Friday so I don't have school today.
It has been a crazy first quarter of the year as a new teacher. I haven't had knives pointed at me yet this year but just recently I've physically had to break up a fight. And the past week I have had my 6-month confirmation observation (though really I've been teaching for three), which was really scary! I also had to help out with some stuff at my school's cross-country run (which sadly got rained out), and our Year 9 camp. Also, I'm one of the teachers in charge of our school's dance troupe, and we have a major performance in April (aahh!). Sometimes teaching feels like doing two jobs at once!
I'm still working on memorising 1 Timothy; the time taken to memorise books seems to get exponentially longer because it takes so much time to go over what you've already memorised so you don't forget it. Sometimes it also makes me feel like a Pharisee, though, because they knew the Word of God really well but they didn't put it into action. I find that one of the most convicting parts of scripture memory is realising just how far you fall from the mark, all the time.
Recently I have also been teaching my Year 7s about heroes and heroines (I try my best at gender and racial equality in the classroom). Non-fiction wise, we've been looking almost exclusively at non-white female heroines, and they actually are a lot easier to find than you'd imagine—Aung San Suu Kyi for example. Fiction wise it's a bit harder as the prominent children's books now are something like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games and Percy Jackson. Jon has been helping me out loads with the Harry Potter bits!
Anyway, I remember that last year just before the wedding I was panicking over my new classes, as I'm not very good at classroom management. Things aren't exactly smooth sailing now but I reckon we are hanging in there. The A to C rate has surprisingly not been too shabby, and I think we'll be able to push them all up in the end. They're lovely students, they really are.
On Good Friday
One of my students (whom I had told off earlier in the day) came up to me late yesterday afternoon and asked, "I'm really sorry. Are you still angry at me?" I couldn't help laughing, partly because I never really get angry (just sad) and partly because that reflected so much of me, the sinner me. As a teacher, I couldn't be angry any longer. The matter was closed. We'd moved on. The lesson was over.
And the thing is, God offers us something way better than that. More than a forgiveness that depends on the sinner learning his lesson, he offers us a forgiveness that depends on his Son. And that's what we remember on Good Friday: the ransom was given, the sacrifice was made, the atonement accepted.
As a Pharisee, as a lackluster teacher, as a sinful wife—I am accepted because of Christ. I am his glory, and he is my beloved.
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