How lucky we are...

I work at an elementary school. Some days I feel like I should be IN elementary school. Those days are when things go wrong...my hands and voice hurt from signing/speaking too loudly, yes it is possible to sign loudly. Then there are days like today...days when a little ray of sunshine can be found in a little girls eye. When children play together nicely and my job is sweet and full of beautifully composed ASL sentences.

These children teach me more about the love of my Heavenly Father than I would have ever thought. Some of them are dirty, smelly and have no way to get anywhere. Some of them are abandoned, live life with out parents and are yearning for attention. Some of them are defiant and down-right mean. Day by day I find God showing me one more "grown-up" characteristic in each of these children.  The tattle-tale will probably become the town gossip when they grow up. The cry baby- the person who always gets their feelings hurt when you don't talk to them immediately. They are smaller versions of who we become. Smaller versions of those people who have hurt me in my life. Smaller versions of me.
So how in the would can they melt my heart so quickly? How can I not care about their dirty clothes when I pull them in for a hug? L.O.V.E.

Each day I get to plant little seeds of the Father's love in their hearts. Most days, I'm happy to go to my job. Happy to come home empty, happy to be filled up with more love, so that I can give it out.
Maybe, just maybe, I'll remember this when I encounter the "grown-up" versions of them in my "not at school life"....

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² now, and what we will be. Beloved, we are God’s children has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears^[a] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. ³And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." 1 John 3:1-3