spirit speak through

... even when you are in the middle of teaching a grade 8 English lesson. We're reading through The Diary of Anne Frank, the play. It's the hot season in Uganda; the fan is whirring, the kids are more restless than usual.

A hand goes up at the back of the class. An ESL student, who probably needs yet another clarification on the lesson you are teaching -- the 8 stages of genocide -- or who will shrug and say the maddening phrase: "I don't get it."

"Yes?" [Bracing myself for answering the same question for the fifth time.]

"What happens to men who rape girls?"

I'm surprised. The other students are listening and suddenly quiet. She fills the silence: "I mean, do they burn in hell? Like, forever? Why does it keep happening all the time? It seems like God isn't doing anything about it."

Huh.

Now, what did my education instructor say about this one? It never came up in student teaching. 

"Well..." I begin slowly. This girl is a refugee. She has been to hell and back. I don't know her full story, and the students know even less than I do. They don't fully understand what she is asking.

Suddenly, bumper sticker theology and pat Christian phrases don't seem to cut it.

"Well, I don't know."

I don't know? Aren't those the words a teacher isn't supposed to say? 

"The only thing I know that God will bring about judgment and somehow make things right. I don't know exactly what that will look like. I can only trust that the Bible says God's justice is perfect. Somehow he'll take our broken, messed up world and judge perfectly."

I look down, toy with a paper on my desk. "You know, I get angry about that kind of stuff. Sometimes I feel like I'm not supposed to be angry, that it's not godly or right for a Christian to be angry. But open the Bible -- God is angry about injustice, oppression. It's not wrong to feel angry. Looking at these things in history, looking at the Holocaust, it makes you wonder where God is."

 I suddenly recall one of CS Lewis' responses.

"God is responsible for our freedom, but he can't be held responsible for our choices. And maybe ..." [here comes Amy Carmichael kicking in] "Maybe the very things that we ask God to do something about are the things that we should be doing something about. We are the hands and feet, the body of Christ."

And finally, admitting:

"This will come up later in the unit as we learn about the Holocaust. There are people a lot smarter than me who have grappled with these questions, and I want to bring you the best resources that I can."

I didn't expect that question. Right now, this week, I can't stand that class because they're driving me batty and I'm handing out detentions right and left. Yet that moment was a reminder of why I'm a teacher, the moments that truly matter and the moments that students will remember. I felt in over my head, but also felt that I was being supported and lifted by the Holy Spirit. And maybe even if I messed up the exact words, the Spirit still got through: God is real, God loves you, God heals you, God is just. You trust him with anything, you can ask him anything.