On Friday the girls at school wrote exams. I had to invigilate...up and down inbetween desks, handing out lined paper whenever a hand went up. It can be boring and challenging at the same time. You can change the path you walk, try and guess who needs paper next, pick up the occational pen dropped by accident or cross out the time on the board.
I remembered back when I started at the school five years ago. I used to pray for the girls I new. That they would write well, that they would remember their work, sometimes for family trouble to cease or to be able to choose the right friends.
On Friday I realized that I knew almost all the girls in that particular class. I knew some of them really well and I started praying as I watched them sitting heads down in the rows. What was it that they really needed my prayers for?
Time was running out, 10h30 scratched out and then 10h45. They wanted more paper, urgently, all the time. And then I saw it. The blotches on the paper. How it got there, I did not know. You cannot give them paper with ink splashes all over! Maybe it will interfere with what they have to say, maybe they will worry about what the teacher will think instead of just putting down on paper what they know. They needed to give it their best shot!
As I whispered excuses for the soiled paper to one here and there, I suddenly knew what I should pray:

Lord, be merciful to them!
Blot out all their iniquities and hide Your face from their sins.
Save them, Lord, and write their names in your book of life.