(2 minutes, 50 seconds)

I sadly learned this week that one of my favorite teachers died. He was only 71 years old. When I first met Mr. Schroeder in my 7th-grade science class, he was fresh out of college, in his early twenties, and my classmates and I were his very first real-deal students. Just over a month into his first teaching job, he had to call a student out of the classroom and into the hall to have a private scolding.
I was that student.

Seventh grade is a year of transition, with all the changes that come with moving from smaller classes with one teacher in elementary school to a full day of different teachers and classrooms in junior high. There are bumps on the hormonal road of life and insecurities that come with being 12. It’s a season of navigating new terrain and an understandably rough age for most junior high-ers .

There are many places in my life timeline that could be characterized as “two roads diverged in a wood” moments. I distinctly remember Mr. Schroeder offering me a road less traveled in the hallway outside the science classroom a few weeks into my 7th-grade year.

As I recall, Jackie Burkhalter was the instigator of the butter-shooting incident. Seated across from me, I watched her slide a paper plate from under her desk as she carefully and sneakily dropped a cold, square pad of butter into the center of the plate. Bending the plate in half and hiding it out of our teacher’s sight, just below the top of her desk, she waited for Mr. Schroeder to turn his back to us so he could write on the chalkboard.

When he did, kapow! The perpetrator snapped the plate flat, and the butter square shot straight upward with an audible thwap! as it stuck to the ceiling.

Everyone except our teacher was privy to the naughty happenings in the classroom. Kids passed butter-loaded plates around quickly each time he turned. As each butter pad shot to the ceiling, the room erupted in snorting and laughter. For the most part, I was a studious and well-behaved student at school. However, since “all the other kids were doing it,” I impulsively joined in the fun for just one butter launch.

It was God’s grace that Mr. Schroeder spun from the chalkboard just as I raised my paper plate above my desk and launched my butter pad. Though by that time there were many butter squares dotting the ceiling, I was the only one he saw mid-naughtiness.

He set his chalk on his desk and looked at me. My face grew hot. He simply said in a low voice, “Jill, step into the hallway with me.” I immediately rose, feeling sick to my stomach, and followed him into the hallway. He pulled the gray metal door closed behind us. In the quietness and emptiness of that hall, Mr. Schroeder gave me a road-less-traveled option.

“This isn’t who you are,” he said simply, gently.
Dropping my chin, I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I was ashamed, and I knew he was right: “that” wasn’t who I was. I mustered an apology as tears started to roll.

That was it. No harsh scolding from him. No being sent to the principal’s office. No time in detention. In Mr. Schroeder’s brand-new role as a teacher, he corrected me kindly, reminding me that “that”
wasn’t who I was. I’ve never forgotten that incident, that hallway correction from decades ago.

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As daughters of the King, we have new identities. Because of our new identity, we live and act differently. We need to remember who we are by regularly recalling whose we are, and then living accordingly.

A few years ago, I was doing some deep soul work, seeking to learn more about who I am in Jesus. Taped to my bathroom mirror, the dashboard of my car, the lower panel of my computer, and on a post-it that I carried around every day in my front right pocket, were the words I had been repeating to myself over and over, a summarized truth about who I am in Jesus and to Jesus.

During that season of leaning hard into Jesus to better understand my daughter-ness to Him, I entered a room at our church to attend a meeting. My sweet friend with a southern drawl said, “Can I make a name-tag for you, sugar?” I thanked her, and without hesitation I asked if she would write on my name tag the truth that I had been steeping in:

Grateful Sojourner, Mercifully Adopted by the King of Glory

I’m sorry I never told Mr. Schroeder how his words impacted me and still do today, but I’m glad I can tell you. All those years ago, my kind teacher’s correction was a means of God’s grace to keep me on the path of righteousness, and it is also the gentle correction of the Spirit in the present day.

Jesus removes the sting of sin, rights our wrong thinking, smooths our rough edges through sanctifying us, and reminds us who we are, and who we are not.