a gift for you...

On the 8th day, Teachers!

To those friends who are teachers, you may want to add to this, like staying up all night to write IEPs or going to professional meetings on your own time or paying your own substitute so you could go to a conference and staying until after 7pm to meet a parent at the time the parent had available.

On the 6th day, God created men & women.

On the 7th day, he rested. Not so much to recuperate, but rather to prepare himself for the work he was going to do the next day. For it was on the 8th day that God created the teacher.

This teacher, though taken from among men and women had several significant modifications. In general, God made the teacher more durable than other men and women.

The teacher was made to arise at a very early hour and to go to bed no earlier than 11:30 PM, with no rest in between. The teacher had to be able to withstand being locked up in an air-tight room with 35 active children on a rainy Monday.

And the teacher had to be fit to correct 103 term papers over Easter vacation.

Yes, God made the teacher tough but gentle too. The teacher was equipped with soft hands to wipe away the tears of the neglected and lonely student...of the 16-year-old girl who was not asked to the prom and the 6-year-old boy whose mom didn't come to eat lunch with him when all the other parents did.

And into the teacher, God poured a generous amount of patience.
Patience when a student asked to repeat the directions the teacher had just repeated to someone else.
Patience when the child needed his shoe tied for the 14th time during the day and patience when the kids forgot their lunch money for the 4th day in a row.
Patience when 1/3 of the class failed a test.
Patience when the text books hadn't arrived and the semester would begin tomorrow.

And God gave the teacher a heart slightly bigger than the average human heart. For the teacher's heart had to be big enough to love the kid who screams, "I hate this class-it's stupid!" And to love the kid who runs out of the class at the end of the period without so much as a good bye or a thank you. And to love the kid who throws up all over his desk and the kid next to him and the brand new carpet... again.

And lastly, God gave the teacher an abundant supply of hope. For God knew that the teacher would always be hoping. Hoping that the students would one day learn more than the lessons in the books… Hoping not to have bus duty... hoping that Friday would come... hoping for a free day... hoping for deliverance.

When God finished creating the teacher, he stepped back and admired the work of his hands. And God saw that the teacher was good. Very Good. And God smiled, for when he looked at the teacher, he saw into the future. He knew that the future was in the hands of the teachers.

And because God loved teachers so much, on the 9th day he created . . SNOW DAYS!

--Author Unknown


Have a wonderful and successful year!

God bless,
~butterfly angel~