The Principal Who Walked the Lunch Line

At a middle school outside Memphis, the cafeteria had an unspoken hierarchy. The athletes and popular kids pushed to the front, loaded their trays with the best options, and claimed the tables by the windows. By the time the quieter students reached the counter, they got cold pizza and bruised apples. A handful of sixth graders ate alone near the exit, picking at whatever was left.

The new principal didn't send a memo. She showed up in the cafeteria herself, every day for a month. She reorganized the line so classes rotated who went first. She personally walked the shyest students to their seats. She sat with the kids eating alone and learned their names — Destiny, Marco, Aiden. And she pulled aside the students who had been cutting in line and crowding others out. Not to humiliate them, but to say clearly: this ends now.

Ezekiel 34 tells us that God saw the same pattern among His people. The powerful shoved the weak aside. The fat sheep trampled the pasture and muddied the water so the lean sheep had nothing clean to eat. And God's response was not to send another memo from heaven. "I Myself will search for My sheep," the Lord declared. "I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak." The Almighty shows up personally — to rescue, to restore, and yes, to judge between those who shoved and those who went hungry.