My heart is heavy.
I'm not sure I have what it takes to keep moving forward.
When I finally love, I love deeply. Collectively, my students have won my heart. They are an incredible source of talent, encouragement, joy, HUMOR, and insight.
To be fair and realistic, they also can be, at times, a source of discouragement and negativity which brings about not only a miserable tone amongst themselves, but a deep sorrow in my heart.
And that is just part of the sorrow. Add in...
*sigh*
...add in the students who have had one or both parents die
...then the students who are having to support their families through their 'part-time' income
...combine these with the burden of students who are homeless. When the people they're with say, "You have to leave", they have nowhere else to go.
...can't forget the students whose lives have already been shredded by gang involvement, directly or indirectly...and that's without the law involved yet.
...then there are those who have had run-ins with the law of which I cannot expound in the least bit, except to say that I want soooo much for my students. An absence from my class is one more day that I question... Is he or she is okay? Will I see him or her again? Will this student return and finish his or her education?
If I didn't care, I could brush all of this off. If I wasn't a person of faith, I could let it go.
But I do care and I am a person of faith. I follow Jesus or I try. He loved with His whole life. I want to, but it feels like its destroying my spirit and my heart. Heartbreak after heartbreak. When will the morning come? When will the sun shine on the struggle?
I wish our community would come together.
I wish adults would be unified for our youth.
I wish... I wish for more. I expect more. I will continue to work for more. I will fight for more. For my students. Until I can no longer fight.
And the first step in this fight, is to surrender the entire fight to Jesus...
but I don't know what to do next.
