What Those Kids Taught Me About Monday
Monday mornings at the alternative school didn't start with groggy yawns.
They started with armor being buckled on.
Boys who left on Friday afternoons, soft-spoken, helpful, seemingly at peace, came back Monday as different people. They walked through the metal detectors with eyes like flint. The Case of the Mondays for these kids wasn't about needing caffeine. It was a survival reflex.
Over the weekend, the school's controlled sanctuary disappeared. For 48 hours, they navigated home environments where the stakes were higher than any grade. By Monday, the adrenaline hadn't drained. They walked in still vibrating from the conflict, ready for a fight because in their world, being open and caring was a vulnerability they couldn't afford until they knew the perimeter was safe.
Every day I walked into that classroom as a person of peace.
Not because I had it together. Because I understood that peace is not passive. Peace is a presence you carry into a room. It is a decision you make before the door opens.
Isaiah said something that sounds impossible: "The wolf will live with the lamb." (Isaiah 11:6)
Every nature documentary fan knows what that means in today's world. The lamb is not having a good afternoon. The wolf doesn't negotiate. So when Isaiah says they live together, he is not describing a minor adjustment to the ecosystem. He is describing a peace so complete it rewrites the nature of things themselves.
That is what's coming. But here is what I learned from those kids: the in-between matters.
Jesus did not rise on Sunday and tell His disciples to wait behind the locked door until everything was fixed. He breathed on them, gave them His peace, and said: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." (John 20:21)
The wolf and the lamb aren't lying down yet. But you are living in the in-between. And the in-between is not empty. It is full of people being sent into rooms where Monday feels like armor, carrying a peace the world cannot manufacture and cannot take away.
Those kids didn't need a better program. They needed someone to walk in first.
That is still the assignment.
They started with armor being buckled on.
Boys who left on Friday afternoons, soft-spoken, helpful, seemingly at peace, came back Monday as different people. They walked through the metal detectors with eyes like flint. The Case of the Mondays for these kids wasn't about needing caffeine. It was a survival reflex.
Over the weekend, the school's controlled sanctuary disappeared. For 48 hours, they navigated home environments where the stakes were higher than any grade. By Monday, the adrenaline hadn't drained. They walked in still vibrating from the conflict, ready for a fight because in their world, being open and caring was a vulnerability they couldn't afford until they knew the perimeter was safe.
Every day I walked into that classroom as a person of peace.
Not because I had it together. Because I understood that peace is not passive. Peace is a presence you carry into a room. It is a decision you make before the door opens.
Isaiah said something that sounds impossible: "The wolf will live with the lamb." (Isaiah 11:6)
Every nature documentary fan knows what that means in today's world. The lamb is not having a good afternoon. The wolf doesn't negotiate. So when Isaiah says they live together, he is not describing a minor adjustment to the ecosystem. He is describing a peace so complete it rewrites the nature of things themselves.
That is what's coming. But here is what I learned from those kids: the in-between matters.
Jesus did not rise on Sunday and tell His disciples to wait behind the locked door until everything was fixed. He breathed on them, gave them His peace, and said: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." (John 20:21)
The wolf and the lamb aren't lying down yet. But you are living in the in-between. And the in-between is not empty. It is full of people being sent into rooms where Monday feels like armor, carrying a peace the world cannot manufacture and cannot take away.
Those kids didn't need a better program. They needed someone to walk in first.
That is still the assignment.
Devotional Questions:
- Think of the hardest room you walk into on Monday. What would it look like to enter it as a person of peace rather than self-protection?
- Jesus gave peace before He gave the mission. How does receiving His peace first change the way you approach the people around you who are still in survival mode?
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