How I saved a child’s life (a true story)

I am a teacher, and I saved the life of a child who was dying a thousand different deaths.

He was drowning in a sea of technicalities and red tape, of bureaucratic limitations and endless uncompleted forms. This small child was tossed about in unrelenting waves of systemic failures that pulled him underwater again and again, each contingency a riptide he was powerless to swim against.

My heart sings, because I saved that child’s life.

He was suffocating from the intensity of his unmodified workload, struggling for air under the weight of criticism and impossible expectations that were crushing his chest. He was pinned to the ground by his own reputation, gasping for breath, unable to shake off the stereotypes and assumptions associated with his ethnicity and social class.

My heart sings, because I saved that child’s life.

He was starving for validation and his hunger for a sense of accomplishment was nearly fatal in its intensity. Emotionally emaciated and weak from a lack of attention and acknowledgment, he lacked any ability to nourish his own body, mind or soul.

My heart sings, because I saved that child’s life.

With a raft of interventions, I pulled him out of the murky water of bureaucracy and set his feet on firm, dry land. I lifted the suffocating weight of self doubt and gave him tasks he could accomplish. I nurtured him with a steady diet of praise and affirmation. And with assurances of hope, I delivered him into the arms of an anxious, desperate mother who had spent a decade praying for the rescue of her precious and deeply troubled son.

In the tedium of classroom routines, in the midst of the mundane, in the center of daily perseverance, there was purpose. I saved a child’s life by keeping these words continually on my lips: Lord, how can You use me today? Here am I! Send me.

I received the credit, but it was He who saved a child’s life.

And today His heart sings.