A boy like him.

He spoke today.

An entire semester of unconditional prompting...
seeing through his silly remarks and self-conscious statements.

I saw change in him today. During our class discussion, he offered something:

On his own.

His handwriting is messy and haphazard.
He doesn't like school and everything about it.

But in his journals he would tell me about his mom's death,
the cruelty of kids,
in short bursts of sentence-like structure.

These moments, these tiny triumphs are the joys
of teaching
in the midst of
assessments paperwork evaluations standards interruptions
there are boys like him.

It wasn't much - only a few quietly mumbled sentences.

But he offered himself.

And that's a pretty big deal for him.

I know, because I'm his teacher.

It made me think of Jesus - how comparatively to His glory,
our offerings are a few quietly mumbled sentences.
We're messy and haphazard.
Nothing much.

But He sees us as His kids,
and He hears our prayers about our pain.

Each breath we give to Him are
tiny triumphs,
and He knows us, because He's our teacher.

If He's half as excited about me as I am about those few
uneducated words I heard from that boy today
it gives me just a taste of the way He looks at me and loves me
despite, even though and because.

And that's a pretty big deal
for me.