Seeing God through a Parent Conference

Today, I sat in a parent conference of one of my ESL students. This student has been struggling for the last four weeks. She came to our school speaking no English. The parents really want her to learn English so they have chosen to have her in an English classroom instead of a bilingual. For the past four weeks, this child has struggled. Her behavior is an issue, her defiance is an issue and she is struggling to learn the English language. Talking to her parents today broke my heart. They adopted her two years ago. This child is 5 and before they adopted her, she was in 5 other homes. She has had no structure, no control over her life and she is a broken little girl who has experienced more pain in her 5 years than I have in almost 35. I heard the pain that these parents feel, how much they love their daughter, how much they want for her. The mom described putting her little girl to bed, and than crying because she wants to protect her, to erase those previous years from her daughter's memory. All I could do was grab the mom's hands, tell her how brave she was, tell her what a blessing she was to this little girl, and tell her how God sends people like her to change the course of these children's lives. Coming back to my classroom, I starting thinking about how God feels about us. He is like that mother. He has adopted us and we are a new creation. He takes us in his arms, calms our fears and over us, he says, "let me be your protector. Let me make all things new. I am so sorry that you have gone through your pain, but please, stay with me and we can get through it together." I found a song that says better what I feel.