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TITLE: Spanked by Someone Who Loves You
By Emory May
07/18/04

Many people would have a hard time identifying with the school in which I started. It was two rooms with two teachers. In one room were grades one through three and in the other, grades four through six. I will never forget my first teacher. I won’t say her name, but I fell madly in love with her. I was six years old and she was everything I wanted in a woman. She was my teacher for the first three years of my education but I only remember the first year, in fact it was early in my first year.

It was a rural school and when it rained, we had large puddles that stood in the yard. One day, after a rain, I was playing in one of those mud-holes when my teacher caught me. It was hard enough to be fussed at by the woman I loved, but when she pulled out her ruler, I thought my world was ending. To be spanked by someone whom I thought loved me, was beyond my understanding. She taught me a lot about love and teaching. It all began my first year of school.

Now I am not naive enough to think that my teacher was madly in love with me. I may have been a heavenly kid, but not that heavenly. But I do know one thing. That over the years when she was my teacher, I knew she cared about me and not only about what was happening at the moment but what was going to happen in the future. She and my mother used to have long talks. Not the kind where I was in trouble, but those when they were discussing me as a person of value. She made several complementary remarks about me those first years and not to brag but I made nothing but the best possible grades. My report card had nothing but S’s on it and the reason was because she cared.

Secondly, she taught me about teaching. She taught because she cared about kids and it was not just a job. It was a desire to help young minds achieve their best and to use their potential to their very best possible benefit. Her husband died, the first year I was in school and she had two kids, which I remember, so it was not easy for her. But my teacher came and taught because she cared.

Then some eight years later I met God. In Him I found someone who loved me for who I was and desired to help me use my potential for my very best. Three years after our meeting, He called me into the ministry. For the past 47 years, I have tried to emulate Him and my first grade teacher.

I have tried to care about people. Someone said, “God must have a sense of humor or He would not have made some of you.” To be honest, some people have been hard to love, but I have tried. In every being there is a core of worth. It may be covered up by a lot of garbage and pain but within every one there is a person of value, and that is what I sought to care about.

I have tried to be a good teacher. I believe a teacher is a person who accepts you where you are, then seeks to help you get to a better place, a better life, and to use whatever potential you might have, to its best purpose. They do not drive or abuse, but sometimes they have to spank, (for those of you who are opposed to spanking), I mean discipline.

The Bible says, “If God doesn’t discipline us, then we are not His children.” When my two kids came along I learned the difference between “Discipline” and “Punishment”. Punishment is when I want to get even. You broke my fishing rod; you have to pay; that is punishment.

Discipline is given as a learning experience. You broke my fishing rod; you need to learn respect for other people’s property. Discipline always has a lesson attached. I am not sure it felt any differently to my children but it did to me.

Roberta spanked me because she cared and wanted to teach me discipline in life.
God spanks me because He loves me and desires only the best for me. His spankings always have a lesson attached. It’s funny the things you learn the first year of school.

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