Been awhile...

Life's been busy. Although, I'm sure it's been like that for everyone else too. Whenever I do have down time, I do think about blogging, but the time commitment to sit down and process my thoughts just seems too time intensive so I end up just sleeping or vegging out in front of the TV. Instead of updating about events, I'm going to just focus on something that has really been encouraging me lately.

As I become more "seasoned" in my faith (to be more exact, as I get older), it gets harder to be excited or passionate all the time. If I'm really honest with myself, it gets freakin hard with the increase in stress and responsibilities. All this is without any girlfriend or wife worries either! Because my life sometimes feels so "blah", whenever I see someone really seeking to grow, it just gets me so happy.

This year, the crop of new students has really given me an excitement for them. It's just so refreshing to see them wanting to learn more, and when they go ahead and live out their faith WITHOUT BEING TOLD, it just puts a huge smile on my face. Part of me is slightly jealous at their fresh faith, but a bigger part of me is just so proud of them and happy for them.

I really feel like this will be the group that will start something great on this campus, so please keep our church in prayer.

Little Encouragements

I'm such a loser. Not in the typical "I can't win" sense, (which is obviously not true, ;) ) but when it comes to needing validation in what I'm doing. Even now as I'm doing a quick update, I'm looking at my wall and I have pictures of friends and family, encouraging notes and mementos (yes I keep all of them), and general paraphernalia that keep me optimistic.

As work has been a constant struggle with the endless meetings and lesson planning and modifications, I've been quickly becoming drained and discouraged at my students' lack of retention and my lack of improvement at teaching. As all the veteran teachers have been telling me, "You'll suck your first 3 years of teaching", I still hate to be the status quo. Anyways, I've been getting lots of visits from interventionists giving suggestions on changing my schedule (always constructive, but still criticism), visits from my Assistant principal doing informal evaluations, and mandatory meetings to learn about different teaching techniques.

I might rant in a later post about all those meetings/trainings later on, but that's not the point of this post. After a mediocre 1st 6 weeks, I was looking forward to a fresh start in my 2nd 6 week semester. Too bad the past week SUCKED. My afternoon class is "difficult"... to put it mildly. After each day, I feel like I've fought a 3 hour battle with them and want to do nothing else but eat junk food and sleep (which I do).

Yesterday though, I got an email from my AP (assistant principal) that honestly brightened up my day. I wish I could be less reliant on people pleasing, but it gave me renewed hope for the year.

Tim,

Just wanted to let you know that I think you are doing a great job so far! You are extremely reflective about your teaching practices, open to suggestions and take proactive steps to do what is best to support kids in any way you can. You will have your ups and downs on a daily basis in your first year, as you already have I'm sure, but you are off to a great start. I wanted you to know that your efforts do not go unnoticed.

Have a great weekend!

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.

Makes me Happy

So I was feeling really tired during a teacher's training seminar today (yes, on a saturday) and was kinda leaning on my arm when I was startled by a hand shaking my forearm. When I looked up, this middle-aged teacher who I had been talking with during the seminar leaned in and asked, "Tim, are you married?"

Whoah. Any cobwebs I had got swept aside as different thoughts flooded my mind. "Shoot, was she hitting on me? No, that's impossible, she told me she was married and had kids. Do I seem really mature and sensitive that it makes sense that I would be married? Not likely, we've only been talking about school stuff." A split second later, I cleared my throat and leaned in to whisper, "Umm, I'm actually not. why do you ask?"

She smiled and laughed, apologizing for startling me. "Oh, I was just wondering because you're such a cute young man."

I managed an uncomfortable smile and thank you, and pretended to pay attention to the speaker. However, I'm not going to lie, that comment really made me happy. =)

Pain of Failure

I think after 26 years of living with myself, I'm finally starting to understand certain things about my psyche. One of those things is my intense fear of failure. Whether it's failing people, or failing to accomplish a goal, not living up to my built-up expectations really crushes me.

So yesterday I really wanted to bless the church during our early Labor Day BBQ. Long story short, it didn't turn out that well. Things were just so crazy and I had to end the night spending an extra hour on the road to take care of something that I had a lot of time to really analyze WHY the failure really affected me so much. (I get into a quiet funk)

Self Analysis:

1) The Good Intention: I have been so overwhelmed with God's grace in my life in the past couple weeks that I really wanted to share some of that with the BBQ. When I wasn't able to accomplish that, I felt like it was such a missed opportunity for the newcomers and I felt like I let down the church.

2) Need for Validation: Everyone has this part in them. Some people just have a greater need for it in their lives. For me? Unfortunately it is something I struggle with at times. Which is funny, because I always feel uncomfortable giving and receiving validation/ affirmation to people. I have to consciously make an effort to do it. =P

3) Embarrassment: Man, I really hate this feeling. The glaring indication that I still operate with this fear is when I was too scared to announce when the food was finally finished cooking. If I still wanted people to be blessed, I would have just sucked it up and let people know there was more.

Ugh. Much to work on.