"If there is a God, strike me dead right now!"
The hum of the cafeteria chatter was momentarily silenced when he spoke those words while standing up with his arms raised. Defiant. Confident. But lost. I stood in the cafeteria - one of the teachers on duty. I glared across the cafeteria wanting to walk over and say something to him, but his moment in the spotlight ended as quickly as it had begun. He sat down and continued to eat his lunch.
He was in the eleventh grade, and since I primarily taught twelfth grade English, I knew that in less than a year, I would see him, the school's most outspoken atheist, in my classroom. In my classroom - where some of the most profound Christian poets are studied, where many class discussions lead to biblical imagery and allusions. In my classroom, where I pray that God will show me on a daily basis what I am to teach these students that will bring HIM glory - that will point these students in HIS direction. These p.u.b.l.i.c. school students. These students who are fed garbage by the ever-growing false indoctrination of public schools. And soon, God would send this boy to my room.
The new school year quickly rolled around, and as I scanned my rosters, there it was - the atheist's name. I honestly had to pray for God's guidance. I knew a test was to be taken - not by the students - but by me. God had been preparing me for this year, for I have learned He won't send His children to battle without making the proper armour available.
I prayed. I truly sought God knowing that my faith to Him would be tested. An outspoken atheist - known to be volatile and aggressive - would spend the next several months in my class. What attempts would be made by Satan? I wondered.
Satan was silenced very early that year. Did you really think he would win? Before a school day would begin, I would walk around my room praying for God to anoint my words, my presence, and to most importantly show me how to reveal the Truth of God to "my atheist" - a term I would use only in my thoughts.
I was pregnant that school year -- a true blessing in so many ways, but I can see very clearly how God used my pregnancy to orchestrate a far greater plan involving more than just me. Within a few weeks of the school year, "my atheist" tested the waters - seeing if he could control my class as he controlled so many others. We were discussing a work of literature that involved an unbelievable event. He thought he would use that moment to tie in how unbelievable the Bible was. He spoke of how ridiculous people were to believe that a fish actually swallowed Jesus --- yes, he said Jesus. A few girls in the classroom corrected him and told him it was Jonah. I remember him asking, "Who believes that stuff?" I responded, "I do!" and then I asked, "Who else does?" About 5 students raised their hands. God bless their courage. "My atheist" was silent the remainder of class. He was used to speaking his anti-God statements, but I think it was rare for him to encounter a teacher in p.u.b.l.i.c. schools who was willing to stand for Jesus openly.
He tested the waters yet again behaviorally, but backed down when I didn't back down. After those few instances, his presence in my class was quite peaceful. On days that I was absent, he would almost always have some type of profanity-laden altercation with the substitute, but in my presence, he was quite subdued. I remember his friend speaking to me on the matter. He said, "You did something I have never seen anyone else do, Mrs. -----------." I asked what that was. He said, "You put ------- in his place, and he stayed there."
Of course, I knew that I had nothing to do with it. God had silenced the adversary - I speak of Satan and his attempt to destroy an 18 year old boy and to destroy the peace of a pregnant teacher who had suffered two miscarriages prior to this pregnancy.
My students were reading silently one morning while I scanned the room. My atheist, while reading, pulled a small black comb from his pocket and began combing his hair. I remember thinking that no male student in my teaching career had ever attempted to comb his hair in my class. In fact, I prepared to tell him to put the comb away, but God whispered, "Let him be." So I pretended not to see him comb his hair.
A few months passed, all the while, I had been praying for my atheist. I felt like I carried the weight of his sadness. The anger that so many witnessed of him while he stood in the hallway. The endless conflicts with administrators. God wouldn't let me write him off:
A Lost Cause. In fact, God showed me that underneath that "atheist" rage was a soul crying out: "Somebody help me. Somebody save me." We must never forget compassion.
So I was kinder to him than necessary.
I remember, on a Sunday morning, standing in front of my mirror in the bathroom applying eyeliner. My thoughts were of my atheist. I prayed, "Lord, am I wasting my time praying for -----? Do you want me to pray for him?" At that moment, my four year old captured my attention. He was standing below me looking into the mirror doing something he had never done before. Never. He stood with a small black comb in his hand, combing his hair precisely the way an 18 year old boy had combed his hair in my class just a few months before. I laughed! I laughed! My God had spoken through my 4 year old's gesture. There wasn't a black comb in sight, yet my four year old "found" one at the precise moment I am asking God if I should pray for the atheist who, just a few months previously, had used a small black comb in my class.
In that moment, I knew God had shown me that I was to pray for my atheist as I would pray for my own son. With the same fervor - with the same love - with the same hope. So I did and continued to.
A few months passed, and something devastating happened. One of my students committed suicide. He was a quiet child, who brought me - a very pregnant teacher - pizza out of the blue one day. I mourned that boy's death. I can remember, just a few days after he died, sitting in my classroom before school started. My eyes were filled with tears as I asked God if there was anything I could have done to prevent it. I asked if I had missed God speaking to me about this student. In that moment, my atheist walked into the room with his black comb in his hand - it was broken. He held the broken pieces of the comb in his hand and asked, "Mrs. --------, can you help me fix this?" My God had spoken again. "Here is your work.
He is what I have called you to do.
He is who I have called you to help."
I grabbed that broken comb and tried every way possible to fix it. My atheist probably thought his English teacher had lost her mind --- It was just a comb. But I knew that the broken comb wasn't what God wanted to fix. It was the broken atheist. God was calling me forth in love to help this child. Even with a simple gesture of spending a few minutes before the school day taping a comb back together.
Another few weeks passed, and my maternity leave began and continued until the end of the school year. I heard through the grapevine that my atheist was quite belligerent to my substitute. Yet, I continued to pray. June arrived and graduation - I did not take part in the graduation ceremony due to being on maternity leave. Days passed. July arrived. I sat one morning in my living room floor and looked through a book my husband had purchased. It included testimonies from former atheists who had become Christians. As I scanned some of the stories, I felt a stirring that God wanted me to contact my atheist. Immediately, Satan arrived: "You are going to write a former student? Who does that? Everyone will think you are crazy?"
So I, sadly, was almost convinced that it was a bad idea. I stood up and began picking up toys from the living room floor. A toy basket was out of place, so I used my foot to push it back into the corner. As I turned away, something underneath the basket caught my eye. I looked closer - it was a small black comb on the floor just underneath the basket.
I said, "Okay Lord. I will write him."
I discovered that he had recently been arrested due to grand larceny. I obtained the address to the local jail and wrote one of the longest letters I think I have ever written. I began with "I am writing you this letter because God told me to." I then went on to write everything that God placed on my heart. I told him about Jesus. Not Buddha, not Chrishna, not Mohammed --- but Jesus. The Word made flesh. I told him that all the world can offer any of us is bondage - slavery. I told him there is only One who can set us free so that we are free indeed - Jesus. I spoke to him of my life. My struggles. And more importantly that only Jesus set me free.
Before I placed the letter in the mail, my then five year old and I placed our hands on the envelope and prayed for the Lord to make him ready to hear the words in the letter. The letter left my hands, and I had no idea if he would even read it, but I knew God had called me to send it.
In the meantime, that summer was a difficult summer for me. With each passing day, the new school year was approaching, and the absolute last thing I wanted to do was leave my sweet baby boy. I prayed throughout much of the month of July that the Lord would find a way for me to stay home. I can remember arising at 2:00 a.m. one early morning and kneeling in the floor pleading with my Lord to allow me to stay home instead of returning to work. I remember saying, "It isn't fair that I have to take care of 100 kids who are not mine, while my baby is home without me." Although I did not want to accept it then, I later realized that God had placed me with hundreds of kids over the years for a specific reason.
It was the end of July, and I remember sitting on my couch one morning - surrendering to God's will. I prayed with pure honesty and sacrifice - "Lord, you must give me your answer. I will do what you have called me to do, but I must hear from you, Lord." Make no mistake, my prayer was not demanding. It was one of obedience. I would obey my great Master. And within hours, He spoke and told me what I was to do.
That evening, I walked to the mailbox. In it was one letter with a stamp of some sort on the back. I realized the county jail's address was on the envelope, and for a moment thought the stamp read: "Return to sender." In a moment, I was saddened by the thought that my atheist never read my letter. Upon closer examination, I realized the stamp simply stated: "The contents of this letter were not inspected before leaving the jail." I then realized that my atheist had written me.
I opened up the letter hurriedly not knowing if it would be profanity laden with reasons why I should never write to him again. The first sentences were words of gratitude.
He explained that a week prior to receiving my letter he had a dream. A dream like no other. He said that someone handed him a Bible in the dream. When he awakened, he had tears streaming down his face. He stated that his pillow was wet from all of the tears. My atheist stated that he shared his dream with another man who was in jail with him. The other man stated that the dream clearly meant something and that he (the other man) was going to pray that God would send him someone who would show him the LIGHT. My atheist stated that when the other man said that, his response was one of sarcasm: "Yeah, you do that..."
Then, my atheist said a week later, he saw that I, his English teacher of all people, had sent him mail. He said that he had no idea why I would be sending him a letter. He opened it and read the first sentence: "I am writing you this letter because God told me to." Immediately after reading that, he admitted that he threw the letter down on his bunk and did not pick it up for hours. He said it wasn't because he was angry.
He was afraid.
For the first time in his life, he began to consider that maybe there was a God after all and that he had been wrong all of these years.
My atheist said that he planned to read the Bible while he was in jail and that there was one beside him at that moment of writing the letter to me. He went on to say that the person in jail who said he would pray that God would send someone to be a LIGHT to him was actually a former student I had taught 10 years before.
At that moment, my Lord answered my prayer of surrender and obedience from earlier that day. All anxiety and sadness about returning to work disappeared in a moment. I looked at my husband as we stood in the kitchen reading the letter and said, "God has called me to be a LIGHT at that school. He wants me there."
I, who had spent so much time trying to escape being a public school teacher for years, finally realized that God wanted me there. Just a few years before this time, another teacher and I attempted to open a Christian school, but nothing progressed in that desire. Dead end after dead end. Even then, I felt the Lord led me to a specific verse:
"And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
Esther 4: 14
The man, who my atheist knew while in jail, had been my student ten years prior. I had sat so many years before reading to him after school. As a teenager, I first encountered him for tutoring - court ordered tutoring. I, a relatively new teacher at the time, stayed after school and read to a boy who had difficulty understanding the written word. Another teacher criticized me for reading to him, for she had already decided he was "a lost cause." But I hadn't decided that, and God, most importantly, hadn't decided that. Coincidence? At the precise time the Lord used a small black comb in urging me to write my atheist, another student from years ago had told my atheist that he would pray for the Lord to send someone with the Light to my atheist. Coincidence? At the same time I sought my Lord for direction in my life, He knew all along he would use two former students to show His servant what He had called me to do - to be a LIGHT in an environment where darkness is ever growing - public schools.
I still weep when I think of His marvelous plan and revelations.
I wrote my atheist for the next several months - words of Truth, words of compassion, and words of hope -- all pointing to the cross of Jesus Christ. At first, he wrote back, and then gradually he stopped writing me. I sent letters as God directed even though my atheist stopped responding.
Months upon months passed, and I heard through others that he had been released from jail. Just the other day, while I mowed my yard, I spoke to the Lord: "Lord, I won't stop praying for him. I won't stop, Lord." After hours mowing, I came into the house and soon after checked Facebook. I noticed that I had an inbox message. It was from my atheist. He had sent it while I mowed. While I prayed to my Lord. Coincidence? Of course not, there are no coincidences. None. Not a single one.
Here is a portion of his message:
"I also want to say thank you. I may not have taken everything you showed
me and applied it but I tried. A year ago I wouldn't have even done
that. I'm still searching though. For God or whatever it is that I may
need. I still read your letters from time to time. Seems to help just a
little."
Oh, how Satan refuses to release my atheist. And my atheist, who refuses to be released. As I told my atheist student, God profoundly presented Himself to him during a time of brokenness and fear. God will never force a person to believe; He will knock, but as Jesus said, we must answer if we hope to sup, to eat, to partake in Him:
"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Revelation 3: 20
My atheist heard His voice - the great Shepherd wanted to sup with this boy, but this boy has not yet opened the door. But, you see, I will continue to pray for him. The boy who stood in the cafeteria with arms raised and voice loud. The boy with the comb. The boy with the broken comb. The boy with a tear stained pillow after dreaming of the Bible. The boy. I will pray for the boy. My God has called me to do so. I will obey Him.
Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." - Mark 16:15-16
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Update: 11/21/13
A few weeks ago, my husband and I - along with our two children - sat down to dinner at our house with "my atheist" and his friend. What miracles does God have in store for my dear student... Just when Satan thinks he has won my dear student, God interrupts Satan's plans again. I continue to pray for him. I see God everywhere as I pray for my student. He is now 20 years old and being called personally to serve the Lord. How marvelous are God's works. I will continue to pray for the boy. My God has called me to do so. I will obey Him.
