A Broken World Made Whole

(1-16-13)

I live in brokenness every day, for my job exists in a broken world.  I am a teacher but I am more.  I can’t leave work at work, because when they are broken, so am I.  No, I can’t take all their burdens, I can’t make it all go away, I can’t be their savior, and I can’t fix the pain.  But I know One that can.  The most painful part about my job, about living in the brokenness, about being broken myself, is that I can’t put the Healer to the wounds.  I can’t give the Truth I know will set them free.  I am a teacher, but it comes with pain.

When I became a teacher, I didn’t know the task I was taking on; I didn’t know the weight of the brokenness would make my shoulders hurt.  I didn’t know their lives would become so important to me.  I became a teacher because I wanted to change the world, but I didn’t know the cost it takes, the sacrifice involved for making that come true.

I exhaust myself day after day, preparing, prepping, correcting, stressing, planning, correcting, coaching, correcting…and it goes on and on.  I spend my time with my players, building team chemistry, researching ways to motivate them, wanting the best for them.  My day is full of work, from 7 to 7 I don’t set foot in my own place.  School is practically my home.  When time finally catches up with me, and I have a moment to call my own, that’s when the loneliness sinks in.  That’s when I cry.  That’s when the burden seems too much to bear.  And their faces come flooding back as if I had never left:

The boy who is bullied and tries to hide that he cares.  The one who cries himself to sleep at night, letting pain scribble its way out on to the lines of his journal.  The boy who smokes weed to escape the worries and stresses of life; he calls for help, but it’s more of a call for attention.  The boy whose father is in prison; he tried to hide the pain, the questions, the anger, the shock, but it’s all catching up with him.  He looks his father in the face behind those prison bars and cries. He cries but tries to hide.  The girl who is insecure and can’t bear to stand in front of her peers.  The girl who was in the hospital for attempted suicide.  The girl who lusts after “men” because she’s trying to deal with sexual assault from her past.  The girl who lost herself when she gave herself to a boy she thought she loved; she lost her character, her purpose, a piece of herself she’s desperately trying to gain back but doesn’t know how.  She’s hooked on that feeling of being desired. Student after student--they each have a story of brokenness, and when they can’t stand the thought, the pain anymore, they begin not to care; if they don't care, it doesn’t hurt as much, right?  But they start not to care about anything… 

But these stories are not just about some “boy” or “girl.”  No, they are my students; they are the broken hearts I see every day.  They don’t know I know all that I know.  They don’t know I cry for them.  They don’t know I break for them.  They don’t know I wish I could take the pain for them.  They don’t know the One I want to share with them.  For, He is the One who can take it all away.  He is the one who took on so much brokenness that he died under its burden, in order to bring healing and wholeness. 

So, though I wither under the weight, though I come home lonely and frustrated, when I seek for comfort I don’t have, when I am too busy for the One I yearn to share, He still holds me.  He asks for the burdens, so I’ll lay them down.  Lord, take my burdens, take my brokenness, and most of all, take theirs.  You are the Healer, and we are the wounds.  Make this broken world whole.