Heavenly Father,

You have given me a calling. You have chosen me even before I took my first breath. You knew that I was created to be a teacher. You have intentionally and purposefully placed me in this specific classroom to be your vessel. Let your let shine through the passion that you have placed in my heart.

I pray that you touch the lives of each and every precious student that you have entrusted to me. Open their minds to receive the knowledge that you would have me pour into them. Though I intend to reach each of them with the same information, I pray that at the same time that you would tailor it the way that each student needs to receive it. I guess I am really asking for the ultimate differentiated instruction.

Encourage them when they are weak and weary and when they can't seem to grasp appositives and when the stylings of Shakespeare seem completely impossible. Help them to find the value in knowledge and guide their steps as you begin to ignite their passions and Your plan.

I pray that they never measure their worth in the numbers and the red letters they receive back on their assignments but that they would learn that they are priceless, each purposefully and uniquely different. Create a culture where differences are not seen as hindrances but as advantages. Let there be no such things as problems, only opportunities.

Send a multitude of your angels to protect them in the classroom, in the hallways, at home, and everywhere that they go. Divert them from harm's way and help them to find comfort in you.

Provide completely for their needs, Lord Jesus. Fill their tables with enough to eat every day; let them never know the ache of true hunger. Surround their homes with your love, even though their circumstances may be less than ideal. Keep a roof over their heads and heat in their homes, and let there always be a place to lay their heads at night.

Keep them close to you. Help them always to feel safe and loved in my classroom, despite what other circumstances in their lives may suggest.

Be in the midst of my classroom when tempers are hot and changing hormones rage. Help me to echo your calm and still voice of peace. Let us speak life to each other in this classroom. If you can calm the raging seas, you can most certainly calm the raging teens.

When I want to scream after giving directions for the eighth time in 10 minutes, help to remember how patient that you've been with me. Replace my frustration with an encouraging smile.

On days when I don't have enough strength or coffee to see me through, lift me up on your wings (& refill my coffee mug). Guide my heart and my tongue, for it is these parts of me that set the tone for my classroom. Help me to speak only words of encouragement and positivity, even when giving in to frustration would be the easy route.

When I don't see eye to eye with my administrators or co-workers, unify us with one goal and blend our differences so that each person's strength can be used to reach our common goal. Education is not about us. It just involves us. Use each of us.

On days when the deadlines are closing in and the papers are piling up, when the students are beyond disinterested, and the state's demands are breathing down my neck and stealing my joy, ignite the passion for this profession that you have given me. Keep me from measuring myself by the test results and the number on the evaluation because my value is in found in you.

Help me not to grow weary in doing good because I know at the proper time, I will reap a harvest beyond belief. I am expectant that there will also be a great harvest to come in the lives of these students. I entrust them to you.

Thank you for this profession that you have called me to. Thank you for the co-workers and the administration that you have placed around me. Thank you for these students, their families, and this community.

Raise up a generation of doctors, lawyers, teachers, salesmen, nurses, business executives, beauticians, entrepreneurs, politicians, farmers, mothers, fathers, preachers, police, firemen, and soldiers after your own heart!

Amen