One of my students inadvertantly, and tragically, gave me a sudden insight into Job. When Shannon drove through a stop sign she didn’t see and was killed, I was asked to offer some words at her funeral. I asked my students to write on a piece of paper things that Shannon had said or done that made their worlds a little better. I promised to read them at her funeral.
One of the stories touched me so powerfully that years later I cannot be free of it.
One day, according to a friend of Shannon, she had come to school late and very angry. Shannon was so angry that her friend walked her to her locker before asking what was wrong.
Shannon was angry to the point of tears. She told her friend that her parents had grounded her when they heard that one of the boys driving a car that Shannon had been a passenger in was drunk. Shannon felt that her punishment was impossibly unfair. She had done nothing wrong and was being punished without any good reason.
Her friend muttered, "That wasn’t right.
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