And one of the passages this morning was Jesus noticing the widow's mites...and I think that is all I have to offer today.

You strengthen me more and more; You enfold me and comfort me. Psalm 71:21

Bless our God, you peoples make the voice of His praise to be heard; Who holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip. Psalm 66:7

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into my heart your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

My friend Facebook reminded me yesterday that seven years ago today I got down to the bottom of both of my TO DO lists for the first time in months, well except for the stack of descriptive essays waiting to be graded.

There is nothing new under the sun. I still have stacks of TKM essays to keep grading and grading because I can’t seem to get a thesis statement out of any of my eighth graders, much less support, support, conclusion. And I long to make really meaningful comments on the Journey Poems because some of the kids wept in class as they read them aloud. But around and around we go. Today is Culture Day so I will be making the classroom arounds of Sweden, Costa Rica and China with my homeroom all day long and I was warned that we don’t even get a bathroom break. But tomorrow, tomorrow I have deep hopes of digging my way to the bottom. And one of my crazy brilliant but totally off-task kiddos yesterday reconstructed all of my google.classrooms that had gotten swallowed up in cyberspace, so that is good. We also inadvertently found some glitch in my glitch-ridden grading program that brought his 59% up to a 91% by just answering five questions out of the textbook. And I let it ride. Grades with comments are due Tuesday morning. I have to write unique comments for each of my students in each subject even if I teach them three times a day. And they have to be unique from the comments that I made just before Christmas break, and I wonder how much unique I have rattling around in my weary brain. Next week I am going to take a deep breath and plunge into the world of Romeo and Juliet once again.  And Newton. Do I have the energy to drape my classroom with rollercoasters made out of foam pipe insulation? Or should we just drop eggs in parachutes off of the multipurpose room? And Civics. I have two and a half months to prepare the kiddos to pass the civics test required of all who want to become United States citizens.

But Everette just woke up for a moment and asked me to snuggle with her just a little bit more, so I left my candlelit table and curled up with her on the floor and she clutched my ear, and all is quiet. And I snuggled in His enfolding and comfort, quietly and at rest.

He is my strength.

And love.

Today dear LORD God, strengthen me with Your love, for without love, all of my works are but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

And the Monday night ladies were reading Ann Voskamp who was reminding us that we can’t be filled unless we are empty.

Let me dump out all of me, so that I may be filled with You.

Amen.