Today
started…very, very interestingly. I woke up tired as usual, painfully reluctant
to leave my bed, even heading to a place where grace reigns, where knowledge is
celebrated and where I spent the day with kids I am most definitely enthralled
with. Exhaustion can cloud many things, including gratitude—and, apparently,
how to make a cup of coffee. After my usual routine of setting my stuff in the
room and printing the lesson plan and other tree killers for the day, I decided
I probably needed caffeine for the day. I started the process—k-cup, turn on
the machine, push the button, and got distracted momentarily by two things;
creamer and a conversation with another teacher. As he turned to leave, I
turned back to my coffee—and realized that I had completely forgotten to put a
cup under the stream of coffee that was now coming out of the machine. I
quickly rectified my mistake and learned within a matter of minutes that the
best way to clean that weird gutter thing was probably to pour what little I
could salvage into my coffee cup and then clean the collateral damage. Cleaning up that mess, I was suddenly struck
by a feeling that was actually quite familiar to me—a feeling that it would be
an interesting day, that I would be fighting a battle for faith, for
steadfastness in believing I was who I was named to be.
For whatever reason,
when these things happen to me, I find myself believing a lie that I present to
myself—that it is possible for a particular
incident to disqualify me. That x incident proves that I am incompetent, unworthy, that someone is bound to jump out somewhere and go "Ha! You really thought you could do that?". That because I can’t seem to match two pieces of
clothing without my roommates’ assistance, because I can’t keep track of my
keys and my phone, because I find myself frustrated or elated by the smallest
things and some days are a roller coaster, my strengths are canceled out. But
as persistent as that lie is, as often as it crops up over days and weeks and
months and years, I am always supplied with sufficient strength to stand
against it. Jesus is gentle with me in my doubt, and oddly enough, the
incidents in question turn into stories that make people laugh, that make me
into someone students and teachers and parents can feel safe around.
Sometimes, in my more rational moments, when I sit down and look at the work He does in and through me, I realize that
this is what He’s doing. In these weaknesses, in awkward moments and those
times I’m sure I just can’t, he is making my heart soft enough for others to
enter in. Half the time, I doubt and shame myself for these moments that
constitute so much of my life, but these moments are strength. They are making
me soft, pliable, clay in the Potter’s hand. They wake me up to grace, to roses
the secondary students were handing out today in assembly, to hugs from my kids
and the day my teacher brought Starbucks for me, to knowing looks and shared
laughter at incidents that would once cause me to dissolve into tears. They
lead me to know and value the deep questions and aches of kids who are brave
enough to share their hearts with me. I understand my students better through
these moments of childlike need…because that’s what they are. These moments
that I have are a heaven sent reminder that I am child and He is Father, and
without Him, I can do nothing. They come when I am preoccupied and consumed
with tasks and checklists and good enough and He levels me with a reminder to
turn to Him. And I am stunned, as I look back, to see that there is hardly a
day that comes without something—a reminder, without doubt and the resulting
grace—and somehow, I am learning to see it as a sign of God’s faithfulness.
That is my Beloved pursuing me, pushing me toward the hard parts of my heart,
that it is in my best interest to break and then strengthen. Today happened to
be a good day, a day of realizing that He is close and knows me intimately and
has set me in this place for such a time as this—and I need these days. I need
these days to boost morale and motivation and strength—but I also need them for
the hard days. I need to hold to what I find on the mountaintop and trust that
it is still true in the valley, and stories like this are my reminder: I am called to this. My heart is to know
students, to help them see their value, their potential, their inherent
belovedness and lay my life down for their example. Don’t be afraid; don’t be discouraged. He is
near and you are loved, and you love what you do. You love that you get to
remain childlike, that you get to take joy in clean notebook pages and coloring
and the smell of a brand new book. You love that Scholastic is still just as
great of a deal as a teacher as it was as a student, that you get to walk
through hours and days and weeks watching small humans with huge souls grow
more intelligent, more courageous and kind and stronger than they were on the first day of school, You still get a rush when you figure
out a math problem or finish a unit and start a new one, and because God is
good, that won’t go away. You will never lose your childlike wonder, because you
will never stop being someone’s child…and it is because of this truth that you
are a teacher. Fear not--you've been in the right place all along.
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