I often feel inadequate and small. Today I feel especially so.
There are just some days when I don’t measure up to the measure I have for myself… whether that be in how I feel in my jeans, or how I feel in my heart. Today the jeans feel ok, but the heart feels a bit…stretched.

One of the most amazing truths about my heavenly Father is that He does not have ‘off days.’ He does not do bad hair, bad mood, or bad days at the office… He only has days where He is good, does good and causes goodness and mercy to follow me – even when I feel like hiding away from Him and not reaching out for that love.

Yesterday I taught a lesson in a school for excluded pupils. Lets just be candid and say its not my gift. It’s certainly not my calling either. (RUN LIKE THE WIND!!!) But my heart really went out to these young people who the world has labelled as ‘failures’ and even ‘menaces’ to society.

I struggled to gain their respect or even frankly, maintain their eye contact for long. Very tough cookies. Staring blankly at the wall, kicking the floor or repeatedly picking at their nails. Exuding mancunian boredom from every pore. I was not welcome in their world.

And who was I anyway? This person with a southern voice, neatly presented baby and wrap-around smile? What could I possibly have to teach any of them about parenting? Bits of their stories filtered out… one had a twin in care who had been traumatised by seeing someone choke to death… another had five siblings all with huge medical issues… One had a mum who was young enough to be my daughter…For them, parenting meant many things. But none of the things it means to me… The gulf between us was huge. Or was it?

Some of these kids were having a fairly off day yesterday. Or maybe even a pretty off year… and why not? They have every right to treat the world as it has treated them, haven’t they? When you hear how they have been handled it is not surprising that they are tricky.
As the saying goes, ‘Hurt people, hurt people.’

But I did not come away from yesterday feeling really sad. Those kids may well have been chucked out of school and care homes, but they have ended up in an amazing refuge. The Lighthouse Group is a Christian school led by a friend of ours who is the most patient, strong and consistent woman of God.

Those ‘nightmare’ kids are being treated royally. They are being loved and taught that they are loveable. Some of them have a long way to go…

Believing you are loved when the evidence is stacked against you is going to take a lot more than hearing a strange woman tell you once. But in that way they are just the same as me. They need to be loved and accepted. They need to be told they have purpose in life and helped to find it. They need to be told about the God who loves them and has promise and hope for their future.

Even and especially when we have off days, God has ON days. He has days when He whispers His love and encouragement to us and some days when He SHOUTS it. Just as I have been writing this and dwelling on the reasons I have not been endowed with the ‘excluded young people calling’, I had a text from someone who came to lunch last weekend. In it were some short words of blessing, completely specific to this exact minute.

Proof, even in the midst of proof, that God is having another brilliant day.