Finding Christ in My Students

It is easy to see Christ in your students when you look at their innocent, smiling faces.

It is more difficult to see that they are Christ-filled when they do mean things to each other purposefully.

It is easy to hear the God that dwells in their temples, their bodies, when kind, sweet words are flowing from their mouths.

It is more difficult to hear the words of Christ over childhood taunting chants that sometimes take place on the playground.

It is easy to taste the savor of Christ in the small piece of a meal your student offers you when they see that you worked through your lunch break.

It is more difficult to ignore the bad taste left in one's mouth from an argument between students over things you know do not matter in the long run.

It is easy to smell the sweet fragrance of gentle Christ when your students wiggle close to you at carpet reading time.

It is more difficult to ignore an attitude your students have toward Christ that comes from not knowing him personally.

It is easy to feel God's presence in your students when they are infectious in their enthusiasm for life and learning.

Finding Christ in my students is a challenge, yet a challenge in which I have my confidence daily renewed. Little boys and little girls yell, and shriek, and jump, and cry, and tattle, and lie, and apologize... this is what makes us teachers frustrated at times, and this is what necessitates that we teachers love them. Our students are beautifully complex and honest in these ways.

It is easy to say that God lives in each and every one of our students- it is difficult to realize that actions they take and choices they make can either draw out Christ's nature for the world to see, or rather dampen the light of God that can shine in them. Yet and still, I see, I hear, I feel and I know the love of God and the Christ that lives in my students. "No one has seen God at any time... [but] if we love one another, God abides in us [...] and we abide in Him..." (1 John 4:12-13, NKJV). In this way, though I haven't seen God Himself, I come face to face with Christ every day- by looking at my students, by hugging them, even when they resolve a conflict. Even that is when and where we all can find Christ in our students. But know this: just because we can't "find Him" always, He is never lost in them, He never leaves them; we as teachers, as parents, as role models, as adults, just need to search for that light in those children and keep it at the forefront of our memory and our view of them.