Come to Jesus meetin'

I discovered something the other day. Sometimes its not enough to be right. I like to think about things in black and white. If something is wrong then its wrong, period. If something is unjust, it should be rectified. As soon as possible in my world. And while all of this is ideally very good, my world just doesnt work sometimes. Black and white gets shaken up sometimes. There will always be grey areas.

I have a situation at school. There is a teacher there that i have trouble respecting sometimes. Ok, well most of the time. He isnt very good at bringing stuff down to a level that highschool students can understand. Saying that used to make me really mad and worked up. In my head, my argument was, this guy is not a good teacher, we're not learning anything so why is he still teaching here? And i felt perfectly justified. All of the students who had him or had experienced his teaching agreed with me, the test scores agreed with me, even the administration agreed with me, and the rest of my class when we went multiple times to complain. We were right. I dont mean to say that pridefully or with disdain but simply to show that in a black and white world, we should have seen our complaints taken care of and a bad situation fixed. In a black and white world.

Every time that i had this man's class i would come home with a new grievance (in my mind unacceptable atrocity) to lay at the feet of my poor parents(or tatum or whoever happened to be close enough to listen to me blow off steam). And finally my dad and i had what he likes to call a 'come to jesus meetin'. He heard my arguments. He listened while i tore this man's teaching abilities to shreds. And then he looked me in the eyes and said, "anna, you can cry injustice, wrong, and unfair, until youre hoarse. But clearly you cant change this situation. BUT you can change your attitude towards the situation. You cant change this man, but you can change you" Now, i had heard this before. Im sure all kids have at some point. But it really hit home this time. Sure, i was right. Sure, the school probably should have done something about this a long time ago. But i was making myself miserable, encouraging my classmates to make themselves miserable, and most incredibly unacceptable, I was hurting this teacher. I was crying injustice and no one was listening. So do i continue to cry simply because im right? by virtue of the fact that i have full justification? absolutely not. I lay this man at the feet of Jesus and i walk away. I dont ignore the wrong, but when screaming that wrong doesnt work, i whisper it to the One who knows black and white better than anyone else and i let Him take care of it. I thank the Lord that i have wise and wonderful parents who hear my frustrations and give me much needed perspective. They help me shift the blinders out a little further. Thanks daddy. I needed it desperately

Because I walked out of that teacher's class yesterday having really learned something for the first time all year.