Light Up the Sky

It's amazing how God uses different things to encourage us. Teaching has been an incredibly draining experience thus far... I'm not even going to lie at how stressful and stretching it has been for me. Long hours, long commute, seemingly overwhelming piles of paperwork and grading... it just eats away at your resolve.

A couple mornings ago as I was really struggling to keep my eyes open, and I couldn't even stay awake as I was praying, this song began playing softly.

Light Light Light up the Sky

to Show me that you are with me

That line kinda perked my interest because the worst part of my drive is the insanely dark roads that I have to maneuver. As I turned up the radio and listened to the lyrics, I couldn't help but feel like God was really encouraging me to just be patient and trust in Him in all things until the right time that He's gonna unveil something glorious.

All of my worries with work, struggles with finding a balance in my life, and discouragement with ministry all melted into the background as I just realized how faithful God has always been, and will always be in my life. As the song was closing out, the beginning glimmer of sunlight coming over the horizon revealed how circumstantial my faith had become. God is always with me; sometimes it's our own distractions that end up covering Him.

Check Yourself

It sucks when you need to rebuke yourself. A week into 10 hour work days, constant adjustments with apartment moving, and different worries, I found myself succumbing to reacting to irritations and complaining mentally. Although I'm sure I let my annoyance show with some of the snippy comments I made....

How easy it is to forget the blessings and our purpose, huh?

What Once was Great...

As a kid, I would always look forward to our class field trips. Didn't matter where we went: a science museum, a historic farm land, even the local park was great. Field trips meant that we didn't have to stay cooped up in classes all day and we got to hang out with our friends in a fresh new environment.

Now that I'm a teacher, I can totally understand why they always end up looking like crap after our trips. Field trips sap the energy right out of you! Today I had to help take the entire 7th grade class to the local park for 5 hours (since the 8th graders were taking standardized tests). Imagine being one of 10 chaperones in charge of 200+ kids making sure they don't hurt themselves, get lost, break anything, or any of hundreds of possible worst-case scenarios.

Unfortunately, I was shafted into taking the 7th grade field trip instead of the 6th graders cuz my coworker didn't want to deal with some of our kids who were in 7th grade so I said it'd be OK if we switched(I know, nice guy syndrome). So instead of getting to chill w/ teachers and students I was tight with, I was w/ teachers I had no real interaction with and 3 of the more troublesome kids.

In my head I kept telling myself that I should just use this as an opportunity to meet some of the rest of the staff and kids, but in the end I wussed out. I was cold and wet (it was misting and windy) and my allergies were making me miserable so I just wandered around by myself watching the kids.

It was pretty sad how easily I end up psyching myself out of new opportunities to meet people. Something I need to really look into...

What Consumes Me?

When I was still in undergrad, I always wondered what it would be like to be working. What kind of things would I be focused on? Would I end up working at a place just because I wanted bi-weekly paychecks? Will I be motivated every day to continue learning and getting better?

It's so funny how old questions always resurface and you're able to do some real evaluations on how some of your expectations were totally off; or right on the money. One of my biggest worries when I started the teaching program @ EMU was whether I would be a teacher who just does the bare minimum to get by and get paid or if I would be genuinely invested in the students' well-being.

As of now, I think I am a bit relieved to see that I definitely do care about seeing my kids grow and learn, although I am starting to become a little alarmed at how much my thoughts always drift back to them. Pretty much every week I'll have at least one dream where I'm trying new teaching strategies with my kids, and even more recently, I find that when I start zoning out, I'll randomly start brainstorming ways to motivate a particular kid that I've been having problems with that day.

In moderation, I definitely see how this can be a healthy desire to help my students, but I think I'm walking closer and closer to that fine line between that appropriate self-reflection and obsession. What is my motivation for all this? Are there hidden agendas? I dunno right now.

But all I know is that I am so thankful that I don't have to go through these draining experiences by myself. During the day when I feel helpless, I find that when I lift up a quick prayer I get re-energized. I remember once again why I'm teaching, why I'm here in Austin, and why I'm still alive.