Friday was “College-wear” day. So I drove to school wearing my Cedarville garb, listening to a Casting Crowns song on the radio. I’m not really a Casting Crowns fan but during college, at a time when I was questioning the role of the church and what our ministry should look like, this song resonated with me. The song is called “Does Anybody Hear Her” and in the lyrics I saw faces. Faces of girls that sit in my classroom everyday. Don’t be fooled by the three car garages.
The song talks about how these young women are searching, hurting “ beneath the shadows of our steeple.” How ironic, I thought, as I pulled in the school drive. I have the pleasure of attending church in the same building where I teach. On Sundays the high school becomes a house of God. On Sundays you won’t hear profanity in the hallways. Dating is called “courtship” and most of the books referenced are written by God or John Piper. It’s truly a world transformed.
[People sometimes act stunned when I tell them that I’m a high school teacher. Usually it’s because I look so young. But you get your occasional homeschooler who has been raised to think that the public school is a bastion of every evil and godless doctrine and when I tell them how much I love the public school they respond with appropriate astonishment. But do you know who I feel sorry for? I feel sorry for all the people that work in those office buildings along 28 and the Dulles Toll Road. I feel sorry for the people with nothing but a cubicle and a computer. Sometimes I wonder what people could possibly be doing all day in those buildings. It must be such a tedious and unimaginative existence.]
A few days ago a girl in one of my classes ran away from home. The Casting Crowns song on the radio told her story. My heart breaks for all of these girls. I wish I could lift them out of their insecurity. I wonder, what and who will guide them as they embark upon life outside our walls. And if there was some way I could save them from themselves, I would.
God called me to the public school, he gave me a heart for this place. I’ve never been so sure of anything. I don’t know how many times I thanked God on Friday for my job, and then that college is over. Cedarville was good, but I just wasn’t made for the Christian subculture.
It’s great to be at a place in life where you are just as excited to get up on Monday morning as you were on Sunday morning. I am blessed. Exhausted, overwhelmed, but immeasurably blessed. I love listening to my students recite their lines for the play, honing that British accent. Or seeing them in their football jerseys, ready for the game. And of course my favorite moments are during debate practice--the laughter, the banter, the political digs and sarcasm. The moments when I can see these kids in just a few years taking over the world. And hopefully that will be a good thing. I am glad to have this chance—this amazing opportunity to be the light that chases away the shadows of our steeple.
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