Teacher?

So...this past week, I had the opportunity to go back to my alma mater. I hadn't been there in over 20 years...it was weird. I took my daughter, Katie, to tour the campus. She's thinking of attending...life is so crazy.

Anyhow, I had about 15 minutes between appointments during our tour and I decided to run upstairs and see one of my professors that greatly impacted my life. He was my electrical engineering professor...his classes were tough. I MEAN TOUGH. But he was a great teacher. I always hated taking his courses but I also loved them as much as I hated them. I hated that I would have to work really hard to maybe get an A-. I loved that I knew I would learn so much while taking it.

He was a larger-than-life type man. I respected him so much and feared him as well.

Here it is, 24 years later...I'm waiting in the hallway for his class to dismiss. Soon, students began coming out, they had the same look on their faces as I used to have...fear, respect, overwhelmed, nervous. I waited for the last few to get done with him. He always sat at the front of the class and would answer questions following class. There were about 9 students up there waiting to ask him questions. I waited in the hallway. Finally, the last student came out.

I went in...I gasped. This once tall and strong man, was now bent over, crippled by arthritis. I approached him and introduced myself. He remembered me...I knew he would....there weren't many girls in the electrical engineering classes (how smart was I to pick that field?).

I thanked him for investing his life in me. I told him how much he meant to me. I thanked him for holding the bar high, because without that, I would have aimed much lower in life. He assured me that he didn't do anything more special for me than he had done for anyone else. I told him that I knew that and THAT is what made him so special.

At this moment, I was prepared to rejoin the campus tour....but he asked me to sit down.

I sat and we began to have a conversation...we shared life...

I shared that I was a single mom...

He shared his past 10 years with me. His wife was killed in a car accident. His daughter had two small girls out of wedlock. His daughter could not get over her mom's death, and she overdosed one night and died. His two granddaughters were 5 and 7. Their father was in jail...their mom was dead....their grandma was dead....there was just him. He got custody of the girls and became a single-parent....working, cleaning, cooking, laundry, daycare, homework....

We discussed how we get all that done. We laughed as we discussed the many meals you can make out of ham...

Then he said this, "My girls are being discriminated against, ostracized from the religious circles...because their mom is dead and their dad is in jail. These are the people that I thought were my friends, my church people. They do not want my girls to come and play with their children."

I told him that my children faced the same thing...due to my divorce.

He asked me this, "I don't go to church anymore. I am not upset at God, but I am hurt by the 'church,' His people. How can you get past it?"

Wow....we went deeper still...here I was, broken, simple, single-mom, teaching my teacher....

I am amazed that God can use me, in my simple broken life....not my educated electrical engineering self...no....He uses the part of my life that holds nothing to boost in....that part that I am not proud of....He uses that part of me to teach someone who was my teacher...