In His time

 Oh yeah, definitely in His time. I have to give God credit here---He knows just when to do something, whether we ask or not.

This past couple of weeks, there's been a weary mist that had settled over my heart. Taking a good look around at work, it was easy to get discouraged. Someone has broken the children. Sure, it's simply the first couple of weeks of school, but I don't recall the children coming to me as broken as they have this year. Not just me, but teachers across the nation have noticed a certain 'something' behind the eyes of the children. I wondered what on earth could I do to fix these broken souls? Was I really going to be able to teach them reading, writing, and 'rithmetic? Hard to focus when their tummy is growling. Hard to concentrate when you're wondering if your dad is going to be home that afternoon, and if he is, will he be in a good mood--or worse?

On one hand, we have numbers that we must achieve, and on the other hand, our students are so much more than a collection of data. For a couple of weeks, I've had the dread that I must bail out the Titanic, with a teaspoon, and hope it doesn't sink. Of course it'll sink. It always does. 

But then God stepped in. He always does, you know. Through the voice of a friend, He reminded me that it was His game, not mine. My 'job' was to simply be available for Him to use as a vessel to have His love flow out from me, to others. There is nothing going on in these children's lives that He doesn't know about. He may use me in some of their lives, He may not use me in other's lives. Either way, He's a massive God, with a ton of plans in place to get His will accomplished. My friend shared with us from a book she was reading from Major Ian Thomas. Loads of wisdom in it:

No matter how unimportant we may feel, ourselves to be, we can pulsate with divine energy and have an unshatterable confidence that Christ is in action as we personally depend on Him.  In such a relationship, the lovely thing is that He does not have to tell us what he is doing. All we need to know is that He is doing it.  Sometimes for our joy, or his purposes, he does tell us, but he may wait years to reveal to us the incredible consequences of what He has done. ~Ian Thomas. The Indwelling Life of Christ.

Lovely reminder. For the past couple of weeks, not only have I felt really unimportant, but a complete failure as well. No way could I mend all of these broken souls, but by spending energy on something that was doomed a failure left me no energy to spend on my family. So, I've failed twice. 

So if you, as a child of God, suddenly feel unimportant in the world, take heart. God has not forgotten nor abandoned us. We're on a need-to-know basis, and sometimes, we simply don't need to know, but only trust.