I am a supply teacher and a member of The Salvation Army. Whenever I enter a school building, I am determined to make someone’s day better. That person could be a five-year-old, a teen or a retired teacher. For me, teaching is a ministry.

Now, I can’t go around openly talking about my Christianity, but people do know who I am and what my faith represents. I pray my actions and attitude reflect me as a Christian and a Salvationist.

I love what I do—teaching was my dream and is my passion—but not every day goes well, and I do go home frustrated on occasion. However, those days fade away. But afternoons such as a recent Thursday more than make up for them.

Visual Testimony

I was teaching middle-school art. The students had been instructed to work on free-hand sketches of a topic of their choice, but the drawing that one girl handed in completely floored me. 

Kylee had been at a table with five other students, working away at their assignments. While her friends drew flowers, sports cars or sunsets, Kylee had quietly been busy doing something totally different, a work of art and witness.

Above a drawing of a smiling piece of toast, she had proudly emblazoned at the top of the page: “Jesus Is My Jam!” 

This girl was in a group of her peers. She could have hidden her faith and chosen to draw something—anything—else. Instead, Kylee drew from her heart, and as she passed her drawing along to her friends to hand in to the front of the class, she quietly gave a testimony as powerful as any I have given at my Salvation Army church.

In Through the Out Door

When the class was over, I remember sitting at my desk and looking at her work, completely at a loss for words. The only thing I could think of was, “Huh!”

Here I was, a teacher being taught by a 14-year-old. 

Up to that point, I’d always looked to see how I could bring God into my teaching. That was not the case on that day. This was a reminder that God doesn’t just work through the adults in the room.

My lesson from this is not to assume I know how God is going to work through me, or that His only instrument in the classroom is me. It really isn’t about me.

God puts us in a place sometimes for a purpose that has nothing to do with us. Sometimes, all one is required to do is to be there. 

Now, when I enter a situation, I open the door and let God go in first. Because sometimes, a 14-year-old will come in.

Corey Bladen attends Islandview Citadel, a Salvation Army church in Musgravetown, N.L., and has been a member of the Army since 1982. He and his wife, Trina, are the parents of three boys.

Photo: Courtesy of Corey Bladen

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