Christian Living

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"Lets see if pizza face has the answer, well, speak up!" His laugh was repulsive. Several of the other kids in the class began their catcalls and insults as well, he had given them license. She hung her head in complete shame and embarrassment, staring into nothing as the acne that betrayed her would never cut as deep as the words that sliced her soul that day. He was my 8th grade science teacher at a forgotten Air Force base in the Phillipines. He was tall and gangly, big lips and a misproportioned head with crooked teeth and breath to match. He was a hated man, the scars from his own childhood must have cut deep, through the bone, and the festering bitterness that seeped from those wounds spilled over the children who entered his classroom of ridicule and derision. He was a foul man, taking the innocent and helpless to task for the pain of his own crippling childhood. Hurt people hurt people.
I do not remember the name of that girl in my class but I will never forget the air in the room that day, my heart broke for her. I think about her from time to time and I wonder where she is? If she survived the cruelty of her childhood and the misfortune of history and DNA.
I wonder if she rose above that obscene moment in her life, to become a champion for the abused, a friend of the broken, an advocate for the shattered, a healer?
Or maybe today, she stands in front of a room full of children, wielding the barbed whip of malice and disdain that sliced her own soul, so many years ago?

Consider what a great forest is set on fire, by something as small as a spark.

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