Don’t you hate when you drop your spoon in the cereal bowl and it sinks to the bottom? It just happened….

A few of you have asked me why I haven’t blogged lately, and the truth is, I haven’t had anything blog-worthy to say, until today.

I should be in class right now, but I am not. I just spent the last two hours sitting in the library, doing a project, and to be honest, sitting through a two and a half hour lecture just doesn’t appeal to me right now. I really don’t feel like having supper at ten tonight. Anyway back to this day.

• I had early duty this morning, as I do every Monday. This means I get up super early, get to school, and monitor the outside area 30 minutes before school begins. Its fun because its all 8th graders and its my time to see the kids I had last year and hear about whats going on in their lives. As the bell rang for first period to begin, I walked up a staircase that is congested with kids and happened upon two 7th graders making out—HARDCORE. Seriously, I felt like I should have showed my ID and bought a ticket to this show..man oh man…I don’t think….no…I know for sure, that I didn’t know how to do what they were doing at age 12. Now, most teachers get a secret thrill out of busting the tongue tanglers, and I am no exception…the look on their face is priceless. Today was different. My heart literally broke as I drug them both to the office…neither one were my students, but how I wished I had that little girl in my class so that I could explain to her about self-worth and the importance of staying pure. I don’t think if I had 5 kids lined up in front of me right now, I could pick her out, but I pray God puts her in my path again and I get an open door to talk with her…

• Next, I had to conference with a kid because of the content matter of a district essay that he wrote. The prompt was to “write about somebody who made a difference in your life and why”. This kid wrote about his grandmother and her influence in his life. Not that unique, right? Well..in this case, grandma influenced this little guy..at 12 years old…to end a drug addiction that he started at age 9. He told me the story in his essay from start to finish about the first time he smoked pot. He is such a creative writer, I felt like I was there experiencing it all with him. He ended with the last time he got high and how his grandma influenced him to quit. I asked him if this was hard for him to write, and he answered “no Miss Mallory, but it made my stomach hurt to think about it again”. It hit me that this was healing for this kid. He needed an outlet to talk about it and writing was it. Please know that I didn’t discourage him from being real and writing what was in his heart, my only concern was that if he chose to write about something like this on his TAKS test, they would throw it out and not even give it the time of day….I encourage my students to search whats inside their hearts and put it on paper, and he graciously followed my instructions. This was heartbreak number 2 for me.

• Finally last period came, and in walks a very energetic young man that God, in His own humorous way, chose to bless me with at the end of my day…everyday. Today however, he smelled particularly bad. Not like ‘forgot to put on deodorant’ bad, but, ‘haven’t taken a bath all weekend’ bad. This wasn’t the first time this had happened and he has missed a lot of school lately, so I immediately thought that this might be a case of neglect. After class I decided to talk to the nurse about it…she has a way to handle hygiene issues with kids that doesn’t make them feel bad. As soon as I said his name, she got his file and showed me times dated back as far as 2004 on this kid regarding matters such a this. How he used to soil his pants in class and come to school with dirty clothes for weeks at a time. The parents had been called in about this several times in the past and they really didn’t care about it…so goes heartbreak number 3. I already love this kid, and to say i’m patient with him is an understatement, but now, God has let me know something intimate and personal about him, and I am now asking God how I can love him better.

All this to say, the next time you hear me mention God’s mission field and why I am not in a foreign country…remind me of the one I am called to, five days a week on 400 Keene Street, Galena Park, TX

Today I am broken, I am humbled, and I am blessed beyond measure. Please pray for the children that God has asked for me to show Jesus to. I don’t want to let them down….God knows they have been let down enough. Thanks for reading.

tdm