MONDAY: Unofficial Day of Prayer to Stop Violence in our Schools

 I am forgoing Simply Saturday this week to promote Monday as a day of Prayer to Stop Violence in our Schools. A few years ago, when my one son was threatened at school, I dealt with this issue.  A fellow student showed him a knife and said he was going to stab him in the back and kill him with it the next week.

This student missed school often, disappeared for weeks at a time, and eventually, after an altercation,was put in a foster home.  Every time this student came back into the classroom, my son’s grades went down.  The administration recommended that he have a witness with him at all times, at the bathroom, on the way to soccer practice, in the hallways.    I know what you’re thinking, but let’s follow my point for the moment.

One Spring afternoon, I sat on my porch, probably grading papers, and thinking about this issue.  This boy thought my son had it all. He was 6 ft. tall in the 7th grade.  He was popular, but he didn’t realize it.  Like any child he had his own issues.  This boy didn’t realize that everyday when my son came home, we scooped his emotional self up and helped put him back together. 

I realized that this young man’s spirit cried out for what my son had, parents who cared enough to help him put himself together, loved him through the good, the bad, and the ugly to help him become the man God created him to be.

By 7th grade, you cannot schedule a play date.  If you have smaller children, you cannot risk a dangerous person coming into their environment.  I sat there, the mother in me, grieving for this young man who needed a mom who would fight for him.

This young man needed Jesus Christ in his life.  Yet, how do you say to a boy who doesn’t know the love of a Father, God, come meet my Father?  How do you encourage someone to become a Christian, give their life to The Father, when maybe their father beats them or abandoned them?  The book, To Tell the Truth, by Will Metzger discusses this same issue.  So many youth today are not raised hearing the language of God, instrucuted in the Godly principles of God, introduced to the nature of this awesomely loving God.  We have to start from scratch.  From a very first introduction, one stranger to another.

As I sat there, on my porch, I realized this boy, almost a man, did not have a mama who prayed for him. Probably few people ever did.  I started praying for this young man. I say young man because according to Judeo-Christian values, 13 is the age of accountability, where one becomes responsible for the condition of their souls.  I think that is pretty manly.

Yesterday, when a school brawl resulted in a student being critically stabbed, I realized that even though we had moved to another state, back to my husband’s hometown, that violence in school is not just an isolated incident, but crosses district lines, county lines, and state lines.

To end or greatly reduce violence in our schools, we need to reach hurting, hopeless, and spiritually hungry students  to give them a hope that God in a covenant relationship provides abundantly. Hope stiffles the urge to lash out.  Hope sees positive solutions. Hope may results in the aggressive defensive use of force, but it is never the offensive use of force. Hope brings light to dark places.

I pray that eyes will be opened, ears will hear

and hearts will be changed

that God will send laborers

into the hallways, the lunchrooms, the classrooms

who either by word or example

plant the seed of hope

through the Love of Jesus Christ

who is our hope

Our youth need to find the one true hope in a loving God who knows their needs, knows their hurts and fears, knows their dreams.  They need to be introduced to the God who promises the following to His children:  “If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,

• I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crop and the trees of the field their fruit. 
• Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting,
• and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
•  I will grant peace in the land,
• and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid.
•  I will remove savage beasts from the land,
• and the sword will not pass through your country. 
• Your will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you.
•  Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
•  I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers,
•  and I will keep my covenant with you.
•  You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you have to move it out to make room for the new.
•  I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you.
•  I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people”(Leviticus 26:1-12).

Please join me Monday in prayer to stop violience in our schools by praying that the seeds of hope are planted in their lives.