Okay, there was one. I won’t lie. Course one out of over 600 students isn’t bad. The ironic thing is that that one student that so unsettled me (it was in my second year of teaching) has been the subject of many prayers since then (so many that I’ve grown to like him and feel for him).

Today was my third day teaching for this new school year. It’s odd walking around the playground where I’m expecting to see my students from last year – I know where all the groups gathered and what sports they played – and seeing completely new faces. And as I see the faces, talk to the students and experience with them this year of their life I can’t help but know that I will like these kids and will miss them when they’re gone just as much as I did my previous students.

Knowing that I have 90 days with each student makes me consider how exactly I can best use this time to educate, equip, encourage and challenge them to achieve great things.

Aside: Why is it that a life is valued by what “great things” it accomplishes? Shouldn’t a life be valued solely for who that life is and not what it can or may accomplish? Again, I have no answers only annoying questions.

The point of this article is simple. Life is precious. Every life. Each of my students has amazed me with how unique they are. They each have a smile, a look, a personality, a way of laughing, a character, giftings, a way of listening and asking quesitons, a look of sympathy, compassion and above all a spirit that is unique. I often look through my yearbooks (one I helped create many of them, two I like to keep the names fresh in case I bump into them) and will recall vignettes from each student that stand out to me.

The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (ironic that I am quoting him in an entry on the preciousness of life) once remarked that ten deaths is a tragedy, a million deaths was merely a statistic. I can’t fathom 6 billion souls sharing this planet with me. I can’t comprehend 250 million Americans. It’s hard to process 40,000 children dieing each day from malnutrition. Or any of the thousands of statistics we are bombarded with. But 600 students. I know them, and they aren’t statistics. They are life.

I’m failing miserably to communicate anything cohesive here. So I’ll close with a thought that is even more unfathomable.

God knows each and every one of us. He is intimately concerned and involved with each of us. I find it hard to keep 600 (now 750) names and faces straight – of course the fact 6th graders hit puberty and completely change their appearance and voices in junior high is of no help whatsoever. Yet God can and does.

Now I know why we will live forever with Him (despite the fact that thinking about eternity always freaks me out). It will take that long to come to know and have relationship with those billions of lives. From my limited experiences with my students – I can honestly say I am looking forward to every minute of eternity.