I come before you tonight spiritually, emotionally, and physically exhausted. Today was a hard day and my first class is tomorrow. I am in the midst of God’s “tough love” part of my life and it hurts; it really does.

I gave a friend a gift that took a lot of time and effort and they completely misunderstood my intentions and that hurt.

I started tutoring at Still Creek Ranch today, which is a boys home half an hour outside of Bryan. It has maybe 30 troubled kids that use self paced “life packets” to get through school. I was assigned an eighth grade boy who was new to the school. We had to do diagnostic tests (100 questions each for 4 subjects) and he didn’t want to. We had fun. I got to know him. He spoke spanish; we bonded. It got hard when he started to refuse to do the work. He asked me why he had to do this. How do you convince someone who doesn’t really care about school that these tests are important? I didn’t. We played a tic-tac-toe type game and he could make a move after he completed a question. The stories that he told me about his life broke my heart. He broke my heart.

Then the principal comes in and slaps a Bible study curriculum in my hands and tells me that i’m going to teach the lesson at the end of the day. I ended up in a room with three girls. One of them is one of my junior high girls from FBC Bryan and the other two didn’t give a flying rip about Bible study. They made fun of Jesus. My Jesus. To my face and I was in shock. They told me that they know how to shoot up heroine because their father’s did it. Their fathers. The one man who determines so much in a girl’s life. One had been in foster care for five years.

We were supposed to talk about speaking with purity but how do you tell someone that they should refrain from cussing/gossiping/mean talk when they don’t understand the basis of your argument (the Bible)? I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who actually was apathetic about their life. I mean, I’ve met people who don’t like their life but they don’t think that they need to change it. But these girls really don’t care. The study ended up with me sitting and watching them while they talked amongst themselves (not about the Bible.)

The day ended in tears for me. I am broken. I know God is teaching me how to deal with people that don’t accept the Bible as a basis for Truth because they have no faith yet. I know that God is teaching me to rely on His strength because today I proved that I cannot do it on my own. I know that God is teaching me to succomb to His plans and not mine. But it hurts.

I don’t struggle enough I think. I’m used to normal days. Days like this bring me back to reality and for that I am thankful. Instead of giving up, I’m going to look foward to growing in the Lord through these things. I’m striving to rejoice in my sufferings and it hurts. But I know that this is not to punish me, but to mold me. Put me in the kiln, I’m almost ready.