HIS doors of opportunity, not mine

I'd prayed since last Friday, after having learned about the 17 year old student from our school who took his own life, that I might be able to talk about it in some of my classes and share about having a true and lasting hope. Monday passed...the topic came up in a couple of my 5 classes, but no ensuing discussions...Tuesday, the same...Wednesday...the same, til the last 5 minutes of my LAST lesson with my 9th graders. However, the topic was not suicide, but rather whether there is such thing as luck. I "argued" that there is no such thing as luck, that there are only blessings! Well, if you have any familiarity with 15 year olds, they will argue with you like a cat cornered.

Our "discussion" was more of a heated debate, which turned, of course to the Author of blessings...in whom only 1 of the 7 students remaining to take part in the discussion believes. So then we begin to argue about the existence of God...the typical arguments of "we can't see Him", "if you believe that then He is real for you, but if I don't, then He is not real," etc. Quite honestly, from my perspective, it was NOT a pretty sight, with some raised voices and bantering back and forth...BUT GOD. Quite suddenly, I knew the Holy Spirit had descended upon the room, our group and the conversation, and His peace and calmness and love took over. I was able to get to the heart of the matter...there is a God who loves each of us passionately and endlessly and wants a personal relationship with each one of us....at this point, each of these students who had been "at a distance" moved in closer to me and began to "hear" His love, as I told them how I fail miserably every day at loving Him and loving others. The questions then turned to, "Well, how do you know you are hearing His voice?" "How do you know that He is telling you to go and love that particular person?" Then one boy gave this scenario: "My dad had cancer and my mom prayed and prayed and prayed that he would get healed and he died anyway. How do you explain that God is a God of love when He allows that?" I told him that his question is excellent and yet we didn't have time to discuss it, but I want to discuss it, so definitely next week we will sit down and talk about that! ALL of them said, "OK, in the next lesson, let's talk about this!!!" There was an excitement in all of us...it's like the Holy Spirit showed up and wanted to declare Himself Lord over our silly arguments and bring in His Love.

This was not the door of opportunity I had "planned", but it was God's, and I pray that He will again, pave the way next week for more outpourings of His love into these young people's hearts. At the end of our discussion, I could see how incredibly hungry these young people are to know a love like I was talking about...keep that door open, Lord!