Little Red Balloons

It’s been a good year.

How do I know that?

Because I’ve been crying all week long.

I knew it was time for change. I could feel it in the summer heat and see it in my squirming students. I’m excited to go home and I feel that this chapter is ready for an end.

But that doesn’t make it any less sad.

And being sad doesn’t make it any less good.

I’d actually be more concerned if I felt nothing at all.

My students.

My beautiful babies.

Tied to my heart like little red balloons.

No matter how the wind blows, and even if they fly so high I never see them again, I will always hold the ends of their little red strings.

That’s a teacher’s heart.

Spending every year filling up little balloons, watching them grow, swelling with pride as they learn new lessons and become better people.

And then having to let them fly out in the wind, with only a string left clinging to your precious memories.

How will so many strings fit around my heart?

I sometimes wonder.

Then I remember that I did not make the human heart, and that the Father is constantly making mine grow so that more little lives can be wrapped around it.

It looks a lot like his heart, which has more strings tied around it than I could ever count.

And one of those strings is mine.