As humans, we all want to feel love and connection. We are designed from birth to crave human interaction. Even as adults, we get that warm, happy feeling when someone does something special for us. The joys of knowing we are loved give us purpose and a sense of belonging.
Consider this: If we need this type of affirmation even as adults, how can we forget that our students need it too?
So many of our students are coming to us broken. Drugs, poverty, abuse, single parenting, lack of parenting, and the list goes on and on. Today’s child comes to us in need of love.
They need us, as Christian educators, to live out Mark 29:31, “‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
We often look at this verse as the person down the road. But today, I want to challenge you to look at your students as your neighbors. Look at them through God’s lens and see that they are broken, and the only One who can piece them back together is God, who is calling us to love them, pray for them, and treat them as we would want to be treated.
Father, We come to You today on bended knees, asking for Your grace to be upon us. Help us treat our students how we want to be treated. Help us to give them grace and mercy while still teaching and molding them into the person You have called them to be. Amen.
Copyright Katina Wetter-Wright.
Katina is a member and an elementary school teacher from Indiana. In addition to teaching, she runs a blog, Reflections of a Believer, and wrote a book, The First 30 Days: A Challenge to Change Your Mind and Revolutionize Your Eternal Destiny.
