Loosening the Ties That Bind

Tonight the kids were disrespectful, inattentive, unloving, defiant and downright rude! Not all of them, of course, but I'd say more than half of them were problematic tonight. One girl kept pointing a laser beam at sensitive parts of peoples' anatomy. A group of kids were angry at another girl for telling the truth about their disobedience and getting them in trouble. A boy pretended to sleep during the lesson and when I asked him to sit up he heaved a humungous sigh and then began to noisily blow bubbles with his gum. A group of girls who seem to think that their "cool" status gives them more value as human beings than everyone else were taunting, teasing and terrorizing some of the kids they didn't think were cool enough to be treated with dignity. More than half of the kids were throwing food during snack and then lied about it when confronted. Some of them refused to help clean up the mess they had made. Ugh. You have to understand, I do love those kids; God has granted me a deep inexplicable desire for their well-being. But tonight I sure didn't like them much. It was like a den of werewolves in the full moon. All the kids' beastly, hairy, growling hearts were exposed in two short hours. And while I still love them and earnestly want what is best for them, I have to admit that I think God may have been using tonight to help loosen the ties of my heart that bind me to them. If every meeting were like this, leaving wouldn't be so hard.