My Empty Heart

 My Empty Heart

 

Ephesians 3:16-17 I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. NIV

 When I taught in a Christian school, I often wore a heart-shaped locket. No pictures adorned its interior.

A second-grade girl noticed this jewelry and asked what was in the heart. I let her open it so she could see.

When she looked inside, she gave me a somber look and, with the wisdom that comes from young children, said, “It’s not good to have an empty heart.”

Later, I noticed she was concentrating on a project at her desk.

Between classes, my young student brought me a tiny paper heart with the name of Jesus written on it. She gave it to me as a gift so my heart wouldn’t be empty anymore.

It’s been many years, but I haven’t forgotten her words. “It’s not good to have an empty heart.”

How is your heart? Empty or full of Jesus?

Teacher Thought # 1

 My Empty Heart

 

Ephesians 3:16-17 I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. NIV

 

When I taught in a Christian school, I often wore a heart-shaped locket. No pictures adorned its interior.

A second-grade girl noticed this jewelry and asked what was in the heart. I let her open it so she could see.

When she looked inside, she gave me a somber look and, with the wisdom that comes from young children, said, “It’s not good to have an empty heart.”

Later, I noticed she was concentrating on a project at her desk.

Between classes, my young student brought me a tiny paper heart with the name of Jesus written on it. She gave it to me as a gift so my heart wouldn’t be empty anymore.

It’s been many years, but I haven’t forgotten her words. “It’s not good to have an empty heart.”

How is your heart? Empty or full of Jesus?

Thank you for visiting with me.

God bless you always.

Kathi

Learning from a Student

Some time back, I had a girl named Chanta in my class.  Since we both changed grades, I had her in my class for several years. 

Chanta was somewhat dyslexic.  This affected her spelling and math skills more than anything else.  You could just tell that she was very smart when she spoke, but her written skills suffered - and so did she.  She would study hard.  Given her spelling tests out loud, she could spell with no trouble at all.  Doing it on paper, all of the letter would be present, but not in the right order.  I hated to mark them wrong as I knew the effort Chanta put into getting them right.  It was simply beyond her.

One time during her second grade year, Chanta was having trouble with her adding and subtracting.  Often her subtraction problems would have answers larger than either of the numbers being subtracted. 

I sat down with her and said, "Let's say you have eight M&M's, and you give three of them to your brother..."

"Oh, I would never do that!"

"Well, let's say that you did.  Would you have more afterwards than you did to start with?"

Her answer: "Yes, I would.  God would give me more."

How do you argue with that?  My exact thought was, "Her checkbook will never be balanced, but she'll never run out of money."

I used to frequently wear a small locket that was a gift from my mother.  This same girl still in the second grade noticed that I liked to wear it and once asked me whose picture was inside.  I opened it and showed her that there were no pictures in my locket.

Chanta looked up at me with an amazing depth of wisdom in her young eyes and said, "Miss Eickstadt, it's not good to have an empty heart."

She went and sat down and got busy at her desk.  I didn't notice what she was working on until a few minutes later when she came back to me and offered me a tiny, tiny heart cut out of notebook paper.  It was angular and inperfect with the word "Jesus" written on it in uneven second grade handwriting.  She meant for me to put the heart inside my locket.  I did.

A couple of years later, I showed her that I still had the heart in my locket.  Chanta seemed embarrassed to see the roughness of her work.  She offered to make me a new one that would look better. 

I turned down her offer.  I told her, "There's no way you can top this one.  I'm never going to get rid of it."

To this day, that small gift of love is still in my locket.  She was right - it's not good to have an empty heart.

May God bless us,

Kathi