Joy Journey Journal

Post Co-Op Bible Class Joy

Yesterday, at the close of my first class of 8 and 9 year old Bible students, Grace K. came to me to chat. She is not a shy child, or a self absorbed child. She is not even a timid child. Yet she was always distant with me. For nine class meetings I sensed she was an afraid child. She was especially afraid of me. I respect this discernment. As I prayed for her, my heart was growing more and more tender for her. I love the children God has giving me to teach. They are so tender hearted and beautiful. And some, like Grace, are warry of the stranger with too many years on earth, and too jolly an appearance to be real.

An advantage and sometimes a danger of being of a certain age, is one can use the grandfatherly appearance to disarm even the most cautious of children. I am blessed when I know that parents have put a measure of fear in their children for adults they do not know. This is an incredibly dangerous world.

This week I wrote a simple reader theatre play about cultivating the fruit of the Spirit: gentleness. Jacquie and I used a stuffed penguin and a stuffed polar bear as props in the play and this stirred something in Grace.

It was the opening Grace needed to come and talk to me about her life. She shared about her likes and dislikes about things I can't remember now, but then we got into Christmas and the joy she is having decorating her room and helping with the decorations her parents are putting together.

She, like most of my students is from a whole family. Certainly not free of the testing and trials of life, but they are a loving unit of hope and charity that faces the days ahead with courage and godly activism.

In a sense, and may my words be kind as I write this, they are refugees from a school system that no longer supports their values. Even here in southwestern Missouri, a bit of left over country once known as the Bible Belt, the school libraries are filled with pornography. Every child on my block has been exposed to some kind of sexual "education" within the public school system. Either from course work or peers. When those who feel it is inappropriate for a seven year old to read "x" rated graphic novels they are told to shut up. When fathers take on the school board about curriculum that focuses on brain washing as well as reading, writing and math, they are, right here in Missouri, considered to be "terrorists."

May my words be a bit harsher now. The parents of my generation were pretty ignorant when it came to the sexual revolution. They knew it was happening but they didn't investigate where the well spring of it was located. They searched a bit discovering a few sex offenders. Then they yawned, rolled over and went back to sleep while the youth of America cast off all restraint and went naked into the woods. Actually my parents thought it was funny as they drove off to their next square dance.

So now may the school system that has become the religion of America be shunned. It will only marginally change and they have already polluted the pond of young learners. And as I recall, the young learners become the degenerate teacher of their peers out on the play ground or on the bus ride home. If I had young children right now I would not subject any of them to what is being taught in the public school systems of America. My neighbor across the street gave me graphic illustrations of what his 17 year old, 11 year old and 7 year old were subjected to in their classes and I can't write the words he told me or describe what he showed me in this post without putting an "x" rating on this article. I'm a seasoned veteran of some of the most disgusting stuff males can concoct and what he told me made me physically ill.

In contrast, the children like Grace run free from all the gory stuff of the unfettered lusts of the outside world. Grace is a child first and always, and her innocence is hallowed and sacred guarded by warriors of the faith. By guarded I mean spiritually, Angels at the door of our facility, and physically, armed watchers over the facility and the surroundings. Has any school administrator learned anything from Sandy Hook? No. Ask the mourners in Uvalde.

Grace, within the wisdom of her family, has been taught to be cautious of all adults, even in her "safe world." I am weeping right now, because in this day, in this time and season in America the trust of a child is worth a million pounds of gold. It is a sacred trust. And today Grace has placed in me a trust to be more than her teacher. I am her trusted friend and by the mercy of God her advocate in the courts of heaven. I hold this trust with great reverence, love and tenderness, because it could have only been awarded to me by God the Father. I receive this trust gratefully and pray that my study, worship, prayer and mediation each day will continue to help me be worthy of what the Father has entrusted to me.

Bless you sweet Grace and all the little sweet Graces of my school of the Bible.




Why Jesus Came To Earth  

                 
 
 
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