Back To School Night

Summer break is officially coming to a screeching halt this week. As we crossed the threshold of the school entrance last night for back-to-school night, the halls were filled with parents and students rushing to and fro, meeting teachers, signing up for football and cheerleading, confirming bus routes, prepaying lunch fees, PTO registration, and unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, I even saw haircuts going on in the gym. It was fun to watch the children’s expressions so full of excitement when they would encounter a face that they had not seen all summer.

Kids scurried by in the direction of their soon-to-be classrooms, scouring the lists outside the doors, first to see which teacher they had gotten, and then to see if they were lucky enough for any of their friends to be in class with them. As we entered their classroom, where I was greeted with a file folder of forms to complete and pamphlets to read, the girls browsed the rooms to find their name on a desk and then examined the names on the desks around them in anticipation of what their daily atmosphere would entail.

New shoes, new clothes, and new school supplies. We shopped for the perfect backpack, binder, pencils, and the folders had to be oh-so-stylish. What fifth grader would be caught dead with a folder that Mom picked out? We even had to have a theTHARus, as my now third grader calls it. The start of a school year always seems like a new beginning and the most popular and anticipated question always is “Who’d you get?” I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I overheard that question as we traveled the halls of the elementary school.

They know that whichever teacher they have will set the tone for the whole school year and it always helps to have a few allies in the rows beside you.

Our lives are like a classroom and I now have to ask you the all important question.

“Who’d you get?”

What teacher will you sit in front of this year to learn the lessons of life?

There really is only one wise choice, and thankfully we get to chose whose class we sit in. We aren’t doomed to a teacher we don’t like. We can choose a teacher that doesn’t assign much homework, where there is never a pop quiz, where the class is all fun and games, ignoring the things that are really important. The teacher in this class doesn’t care if you pass or fail, he’ll never call your parents if you struggle - OR – we can choose the Teacher that, yes, sometimes does assign homework, and yes sometimes gives quizzes, it may not always be fun, all of our friends may not be there, but the Teacher will teach you lasting lessons and push you to be something greater than the first day you stepped into His classroom. He cares whether you pass or fail and will stay with you on a subject until you get, because He loves you. The roster outside His room never gets full, and those who have participated in His teaching never regret it. They never walk away being less than when they started.

That’s the Teacher I want. I hope that as every new school year that approaches in my life, I run down the halls of time’s school thrilled to see my name on His list of students.




Royal Princess Daughter Of The King