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We Live in a Fallen World

By most standards, compared the majority of other teachers and schools, I have had it good these first five years of my teaching career. I have been blessed to teach at schools that are distinctly Christian, supported by parents who a majority of the time extremely supportive, and filled students who a majority of the time are respectful and really do want to live their lives like Christ wants them to.

So, I am spoiled, really and I take things for granted. I do until the fallenness of this world, which penetrates into all things, including the school I work in, hits me in the face.

In the past two years, a student has seriously attempted suicide and a student was diagnosed with leukemia. This year we have dealt with student theft and vandalism and just this week we learned a student is pregnant. It is hard to know how to best help students when I myself am reeling through the emotions and thoughts that come with all of this. My heart feels heavy at times like this.

It is hard to know how to live in this fallen world, a world that we do not belong to.The only comfort to me, the only way I can sometimes carry on is to remember that very fact. This world is not my home. There is so much more than this.

I have just finished teaching the novel Peace Like a River by Lief Enger to my sophomores. I love this book for many reasons, but at the end, the author paints this beautiful picture of heaven. The book ends with the narrator saying "All I can do is say, Here's how it went. Here's what I saw. I have been there and I am going back. Make of it what you will."

We live in a fallen world. We live in the hope that it will be made new. We must show others, all of whom are fallen like ourselves, what to make of this world and the world to come.

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