It happens every year.  I am head over heels for my classroom of amazing kids.  They are the only easy prayer I have lately; they are astounding.  Every morning I wake up and read the news.  Every morning I shudder at our evil, dark days.  And then I drive to school and I pour myself into twenty-five little beings who are learning to ask questions, to champion kindness, to notice the sparks in each other.  I have told them five thousand times I will write their references for college.  I have told them five thousand times they will be good.  I have told them five thousand times kind is the bravest thing you can be.

I have moments when I can almost hear the wailing women of Isaiah.  I have moments when I am almost thankful we have not birthed a child yet.  Moments when the fear devours everything else living inside me.  He stilled me earlier this week when I was praying my fear out, Don't feed the fear.  I thought at first I was supposed to stop reading the news, stop listening to our world, stop being aware.  But then we read 1 Samuel and the battle of Jonathan and his armor bearer.   And I remembered that my God is the God who not only places impossible battles in our path, He removes them.  Crushes them.  Kills twenty with only two faithful men.  Routs a whole nation because one man remembered who his God was.  Is.

The evil seems too strong, too smart, too slippery scary until I remember there is a classroom of 6th graders bursting past themselves and toward the good men and women they will be, even larger though is this: we have a God who is countless good things.  Who loves fiercely and who has already written the end.  We have a God who is The End.