"Why did you come here?"

Last week, one of my students asked me this question when we were discussing their journal topic of the day. My answer was the obvious one: "To teach you English, of course!"

However, I've been thinking about this a little more deeply. Why did I come here? My decision to come here was calculated, thoughtful, and motivated by a deep desire for adventure (although those three reasons are a bit contradictory in nature). I prayed about it, felt confident that this was a good decision, mainly because it would be a good post-college experience. I was excited about the idea of teaching--it sounded so noble and so typical of what good, single Christian young adults should do.

How about now? I'll be honest. Right now, I feel like I'm surviving. Teaching is far more difficult than I imagined. Having to discipline apathetic high school boys with an "I could care less" attitude makes me really frustrated. Capturing the attention of squirmy, chattery 4th graders when you don't speak their language requires more creative thought and hard work than did my Honors Thesis on Sacramental Pneumatology. I used to think that being a teacher was akin to leading a glorious bayonet charge against the strongholds of Ignorance. Instead, I feel like I'm sitting in a muddy trench in a God-forsaken French battlefield, trying to restore order to my troops in the middle of an artillery shower. (Can you tell I just finished teaching my 12th graders about World War I?)

I also had the idea that coming to Mexico would give me a chance to grow into my dream of being a more reflective, balanced, informed, problem-solving, sin-overcoming, passionate follower of Jesus. To be frank once again, I feel as beset by sin, pride, and apathy as I did before I came, if not more. I keep dreaming of a time when I will be perceived by others to be a humble, established, strong believer who leads great battles against injustice for the glory of God. Instead, I feel like my ship just got torpedoed, and I'm floundering in the North Atlantic with only driftwood and an ever-receding hope of someday being rescued to keep me afloat. Darned reality.

This week, I had the privilege of witnessing two little girls with tears in their eyes. For some reason, I have a very soft spot in my heart for crying chicitas. Perhaps it's their precious innocence and their present lack of security that turns on the compassionate side of my heart. One of them was accidentally hurt in my 4th grade class, and the other, a rather troubled 1st grader with a troubled family, had to be "disciplined". Regardless of the reason, when I perceived their red, welling eyes, my heart melted for them. I took their hands in mine and told them that everything was going to be ok. When one of them ran up to me the next day at recess and wrapped her little arms around my legs, I nearly fell apart. I delighted in their well-being, and I don't hardly know them.

Today, I felt like a little girl with tears in her eyes. Or at least a little boy. And what a soft spot our Heavenly Father has in his heart for his children!

I'm not really one to wax mushy about God's love. In fact, I often avoid talking about God's love because we often speak of his love without mentioning his holiness, or the fact that we profane his holiness in many and diverse ways every day. I often avoid it because I feel like it's a message much overstated by well-meaning yet shallow "Christian" songs, greeting cards, t-shirts, and email forwards. But today, I can't get around the fact that the Creator of all that is, the One whom angels ceaselessly exalt, the God whom the entire universe glorifies in a great cosmic dance of galaxies trillions of light-years apart, that this God cares about my infinitively insignificant soul.

And this is no empty "I love you". It is backed up with hundreds of promises that are fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, the fullness of the Father's love. The credibility of this unearned, unmerited love is great: a bloodied, shamed, crucified divinity with the spittle of our spite still in his beard and the wrath of his Father bearing hot upon his head.

In view of this, my failure and weakness at the present time are naught but the tears of a little girl. And for some reason, the Creator delights in my well-being. He delights when I delight in him. Perhaps that is why I have come here. He is teaching me to delight in him as I never have before.