Birthday Gifts

My birthday was on September 12th. I was showered with encouraging messages, little surprises, hugs and birthday songs in multiple languages. But most special of all, I received two very unexpected gifts from God.

Gift #1

I have been praying a lot for a specific student lately, who shows attitude and really needs a positive father figure in his life. During chapel on Wednesday, this student was especially on my heart. While the chapel band was singing, I was praying that God would somehow touch him that day, as well as provide some positive male role models for him to follow. Right after chapel, I noticed our P.E. coach sitting down and talking with this student. I wondered if the reason for the talk was misbehavior, so later I asked Coach what he and the student had been discussing.

Coach told me that for some reason, God had just really brought this student to his mind and he felt a strong urge that he was supposed to go talk with him. So Coach pulled the student aside to just ask how it’s going, and talk about identity, who are you? And who do you want to be?. It was a powerful conversation, especially because this student is used to being pulled aside only for misconduct. But right then and there, God touched him through Coach’s words encouraging him to examine himself and reflect on what he believed was true. When asked the hard question of “do you believe all this?” (this meaning the gospel), the student replied with a courageously honest, “no.” Coach communicated to the student that if he ever had questions or just wanted talk that the student could freely come to him.

After Coach told me this story, I looked at him and smiled. “That was exactly what I was praying for!"

1 John 5:14-15

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.^"

Gift #2

Later the same day, I had a student be indirectly defiant in my class, where he was playing dumb about following instructions and overall having a hard time focusing in class. I tried to talk to him afterwards, but he refused to make eye contact, and I’m sure that there must have been an i-don’t-care-and-don’t-want-to-listen broken record playing in his head. So I decided we would walk to the next class together, since it was upstairs, and it would give us some time to talk and give him a transition time to let go of his negative attitude.

We stopped midway through the hallway, and I made very clear to him that these skills of listening and following instructions were skills he would need his whole life, not just in school. Then I prayed for him; I knew the words came from God, because I wasn’t sure when I started what I was going pray. But the words flowed, as I spoke truth over this student’s life, knowing especially that he was loved and cared for by a personal God. He had been avoiding eye contact with me up until this point. But when he looked up from the prayer, for one split second our eyes met, and I could tell he had tears in his eyes.

Something, really the great Someone had gotten through and, after many days of praying and thinking about this student, he was finally at a point where Love could make the first chisel blow into the walls he had built of trying to be the funny guy or misbehaving to get attention, protecting himself from the vulnerability of being the new student in a new country, feeling uncared for or unwanted. But I saw it. A tiny crack had begun at the top of that wall, starting to let in God’s Light and Truth, and I knew who held the chisel.

I walked the student back to class, as he rubbed his eyes and blinked away the water, trying to regain his tough guy composure.

His eyes were adjusting to the Light.

Philippians 1:6

"And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you."