The Journey to Teacherhood

Decisions terrify me.  I hate making any kind of decision for fear of making the wrong choice, upsetting someone, or it ending badly.  I really like it when someone else makes a decision for me and I can just follow through.  Over the summer I was faced with the biggest decision of my life to date... where will I work come the fall?  I suddenly had a ton of decisions all at once and to be honest, it was miserable.  I just wanted to hide away.  At the peak of it all I slept most of the day away, avoided people, and just binge watched Gilmore Girls in the hopes of never having to make an actual decision.  I didn't want to fill out the applications, interviews scared me, and lets not even begin to talk about the anxiety of actually having to accept a position!  But... what if I wasn't ever offered a job?  Then what?!  And the anxiety began all over again.  See, I had the potential of 3 jobs on the line:  a preschool position, a public school position, and a private, Christian school position.  My hopes and dreams rested in the public school position as it was my dream grade in my dream school!  I prayed and I hoped for this job.  I asked everyone I knew to join me in praying for this job.  I lost a lot of sleep, stressed a lot, and talked the ear off of anyone who would listen.

Sounds like an enjoyable summer, right?

Yeah.  It wasn't.

In the midst of it all it became hard to see clearly what God was telling me, what my own thoughts were telling me, and where I was confusing the two.

After weeks of prayer, tears, and many phone calls to my mom, I accepted the 5th grade position at a Christian school.  Although it wasn't an enjoyable process in the moment, I can say that I'm thankful for the experience.  Though many times I felt alone, exhausted, at my wit's end, and more... I'm not sure (given the chance) that I'd do anything differently.  Why?  God used this trial to refine my faith and teach me so many valuable lessons that I wouldn't have learned without this trial.  Like James says in his letter to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion,

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-4 ESV)

God has promised in His word that He gives us trials in order to make us more steadfast, complete, and PERFECT!  Wow.  What an amazing promise!

It's been about two months since I've made the decision to join the NCS family and I have learned so many lessons.  It's been a roller coaster ride since July but again, if given the chance, I wouldn't change it.

Here's what I've learned:

1) I'm not in control.  I know, I know.  Silly me, right?  I thought I had control over my life.  My dream job was second grade in a public school.  I'm teaching 5th grade in a private Christian school.  I promised myself I would never teach in a Christian school and honestly, during this trial I tried everything I possibly could in order to get out of this position.  But, The Lord's will prevails!  As bummed as I am to not get my 'dream job', I am thrilled to be able to be doing the Lord's will as He made it quite clear that this is where I am supposed to be as He closed all the other doors yet left this one open.

2) The value of the Body of Christ cannot be overstated.  In the midst of all the struggle, anxiety, and frustration, one thing remained secure.  My church family.  My brothers and sisters in Christ.  They were there every step of the way and supported me, encouraged me, pointed me back to Jesus, and prayed with and for me with each twist and turn thrown my way.  We weren't made to do this life alone.  God has made us for community and to help each other carry the heavy burdens of life.

3) God truly has the best in store for us.  Romans 8:28 states: "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."  This was a verse that I would often counsel others with but if I'm being honest, I didn't always see as truth for my life.  I often struggled with seeing the good come out of the bad.  However, this trial brought light to this verse and showed me God's goodness in the midst of the train wreck I called my summer.  As I have settled into my new job I have been blessed with the world's greatest co-workers, a support system that I never imagined possible, new friends, and a mentor that has guided me, rebuked me, and challenged me in ways that I wouldn't have gotten without this new position.  The new job has allowed me to deepen my faith, be filled with teaching from amazing individuals, teach from the Bible and my curriculum simultaneously, and more.  When I think about the other jobs that would've been opportunities for me, I wouldn't have had any of these opportunities if God had given me either of those jobs.  He truly works all things together for the good of those that love Him.  He knows what He's doing.

4) I am needy.  I have always prided myself on never needing help, never asking questions, and never letting people know that I don't know something.  I have always put on the persona that I have my act completely together and that, if I'm being honest, is exhausting.  When I started this new job, I was given a little instruction on curriculum, teaching methods, and how the school ran, but most of it was left unsaid.  I have been in public school since first grade and switching gears to teaching in a private, Christian school was quite the culture shock.  I had suddenly found myself with a lot of questions and not wanting to ask them but as I thought about it more, I realized two things.  One, not asking questions resulted in not getting answers and two, not getting answers was at the detriment of both my students and me.  What good was it doing me to not ask questions?  Exactly.  It wasn't doing any good.  So, much to my dismay, I swallowed my pride and began asking questions.  A lot of questions.  If I can be honest, it was truly freeing to admit that I didn't know what I was doing and that I needed help.  It allowed me the freedom to learn, grow, and adjust to the new environment, culture, and routine.  No one expected me to have my act together, it was a lie I was telling myself.  In fact, they expected me to have questions and inquire.  As I began asking questions to a co-worker, trust was built, and a friendship formed.  If I hadn't been humbled and realized my neediness, I doubt this friendship would've formed and been as precious to me as it is.  Even more than that though, in the midst of my pride, I lost fact of how much I need Jesus.  I can't do this on my own.  I cannot even take another breath unless He has ordained it for me.  The days of my life are numbered and He has prepared good works for me in which to walk.  I am needy and I praise the Lord for reminding me just how much I need my Savior.  It's still a struggle for me to ask questions and feel like I'm bothering those around me with my dependency but I'm thankful that the Lord has begun this good work in me and that He's promised to bring it to the day of completion in Christ Jesus.

5) Children are wonderful gifts to be treasured, but they are sinful.  I've been around kids a long time.  I've had my fair share of temper tantrums, melt downs, and all the other joys that come with children.  However, it can be so easy to look at them and forget that they are affected by the fall of man just as I am.  Children are not perfect.  They are not angelic.  They seek to run their lives and be the kings/queens of their own worlds but they're not.  They are selfish, needy, deceitful, etc. and I'm not doing them (or myself) any favors by pretending otherwise.  The Lord has reminded me daily to be praying for my students, teaching them from the Scriptures, and pointing them back to Jesus.  They need to be reminded of their sinfulness as much as I do and I praise God that He has put me in a position where I can do just that.

6)  I enjoy comfort.  When I think back to the reasons I wanted the public school job more than the others, none of them were actually "good reasons".  The main reason I wanted to teach there was because I knew the teachers, the kids, and the school environment.  It was the same grade, same school, same teachers, etc.  Notice a pattern?  Yeah.  It was a safety zone.  The thought of moving into uncharted territory terrified me.  However, as a Christian, I'm not called to comfort.  This earth is not my forever home, heaven is.  When we are placed in situations where we are uncomfortable, we are forced to rely on the Lord more for strength, wisdom, grace, etc.  If we are comfortable, it becomes much easier to rely on ourselves to make it through each day.  By accepting a job in a new area, in a school culture that I knew nothing about, and with a grade level that I had no experience with, I needed to rely more on the Lord than myself and what a humbling experience that has been!  If I had been given the job at the public school, it would've been much easier to rely on my own works and become puffed up and prideful.  As hard as it is to be outside of my comfort zone on a daily basis, I'm thankful for how it has forced me to rely on the Lord for strength, wisdom, and grace!


This, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg of things that the Lord has taught me in the past few months.  It has been a roller coaster ride filled with trials, anxiety, sleepless nights, laughter, hugs, new friends, and many nights of crying.  However, it has been one of the greatest blessings of my life.  I cannot imagine working anywhere else and I cannot imagine my life now without the people I now call co-workers.  I love the fact that I can teach a science lesson about how God has created goldenrod in a unique way.  I love teaching the fact that Columbus felt called by God to convert the people of the West Indies to Christianity (didn't learn that in public school, did ya?).  I love the fact that I can sing Scripture to my students and memorize passages with them week after week.  I am truly blessed to work where I am and have been given the trials and joys that have come my way.  I'm sure the next 9 months will hold many more lessons and although I'm sure they'll be hard to learn, I praise God for how He is refining me and using me to further His work.

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen."

Blessings,

Danielle

All Things New

I just graduated college last week!  To many, this would be a primarily joyous occasion but to me, it came with a lot of sadness.  To me, graduation primarily meant the end of my student teaching experience.  Over the past school year I had gotten the chance to spend a great deal of time with 22 second graders and it was, by far, one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I not only got the chance to teach the children, I got the ability to know them in a way that I never expected.  See, what many people didn't see about my students was their life outside the classroom.  They didn't see that one of them had a mom who had to work many long hours a day and was never home, they didn't the families who had to make hard decisions to provide for their kids, they didn't see the one who almost lost a mom due to an awful car accident, they didn't see their desire simply for love... they didn't see that 65% of the students in the school qualified for free or reduced lunch and the majority of the school was living well below the poverty line.  They simply didn't see and honestly, they probably didn't care.  They didn't see the brokenness of the lives of my students and the world they were born into and if they were exposed to it, they were shocked and appalled at the lives these children were living.

But, if we look at it with a biblical lens, we shouldn't be surprised!  In order to see what went wrong, we first need to look at what God intended.  If we look at the account of God creating the world in Genesis 1, we see how the world was meant to be.  In fact, we see in Genesis 1:31, 

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (ESV)

Do you see that?  Very good.  What I was seeing in my students doesn't look like very good!  What then happened??  Let's take a look at Genesis 3.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
(Genesis 3:8-13)

Well... this changes things, now doesn't it?  It was in this moment that everything began to unravel.  The world was now cursed because of disobedience to God.  There was now sickness, death, anger, guilt, shame, pain, and more.  All because of one piece of fruit and Satan's deceptive lies.  So, we shouldn't be surprised by the brokenness in the world around us.  Honestly, we should expect it.  But if I'm being honest, it often catches me by surprise!  I was often taken aback by my students' brokenness, the pain/suffering of this world, sickness, and the other pains that are a result of the fall and it left me feeling hopeless, burdened, and helpless.  It left me in a constant state of sorrow and it wasn't until this past week that the sorrow I felt began to be lifted and I was shown hope.  I spent the past week at a conference hosted by DiscipleMakers (a college ministry) with the theme "All Things New".  How fitting, right?  It was.  The perspective I was given in regards to the brokenness of the world was amazing.  I felt like there was hope!  God sent His son to earth to become fully human, yet fully God.  Jesus lived a perfect life yet died the death we deserve by being publicly shamed and left to suffocate & bleed to death on a wooden cross.  He defeated death when He rose from the dead 3 days after His death and then ascended into heaven to be seated in heaven with His Heavenly Father once more!

...talk about hope!  Revelation 5:5 says,

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Weep. No. More.

There is so much comfort in those words because of the words that come after it!  "...behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered..."

Because Jesus has conquered death, weep no more.  I found so much comfort in these words!  But even more than these words, I can take hope in the fact that God has promised to make ALL things new!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:1-5)

He is making all things new.  Not me, God.  He is making Creation new.  The human race.  The grieving mother that just lost a child.  The child who's parent abandoned them.  My friends that lost their kitchen two weeks ago to a house fire.  Even the little eight year olds in my classroom.  ALL things.  I don't know about you, dear friends but I long for that day!

May this hope and promise propel me to become something more than myself and share this hope that Christianity brings to those around me!  May this hope also relieve the burden of sadness felt in my classroom knowing that although I may not be able to do something to help them, that God has promised to make them new!

"Come, for creation groans,
Impatient of Thy stay,
Worn out with these long years of ill
These ages of delay"

Red Mountian Music- All Things New
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukej-X-ssIo

Love and blessings,

Danielle

Loving the Mess Beneath the Surface

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and wondered why they were acting the way they were?  Or maybe you have a friend who always does one behavior and you're not sure why?  Have you ever thought about why people do what they do?

It's something I really enjoy doing.  I love looking at a person as a puzzle and asking myself questions like "Why are they doing that?" or "What makes them tick?".  It becomes a game for me to see if I can uncover the roots of why someone believes a certain thing to be true or why someone acts a certain way.  I'm currently student teaching and my classroom is full of the cutest 7-8 year olds....most days.  There are the days though when one of them will break down in tears or throw a colored pencil across the room or put their head down and refuse to work.  Why?  Wouldn't you think that'd be the common question to ask?  Well... much to my chagrin, it doesn't seem to be the common response.  Whether we are in a school district, in the workplace, or in our own family unit, there's always more than what meets the eye to everyone and often times we simply don't care.

People are complex.  There are things we do that we aren't even sure why we do them.  Why do you click your pencil 3 times before you use it?  Why don't you wear a navy blue sweater with black dress pants?  Why is it every time your neighbor says hi, you run away?  Why do you push friends away?  Why are you scared of commitment?  ...the list is endless.

Proverbs 20:5 says: "The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water,  but a man of understanding will draw it out."

Everyone wants to be understood.  We all want people to know us, relate to us, and seek to understand our feelings, thoughts, and beliefs.  We all want a "man of understanding" in our lives.  One of the most loving things we can do for someone is to listen, ask why, and seek to understand.  Not only does it help us understand that person better, but it also helps them understand themselves better.  How much better of a teacher does it make someone when they know their students need to move, have written directions, and time to talk to their friends?  How much better of a husband does it make a man when he knows that his wife obsessively cleans when she's stressed or anxious about something?  How much better of a friend does it make someone when they know that you don't trust people of the opposite gender because you were abandoned by a parent or abused as a child?  Doesn't that help us to better love, serve, and care for those around us?  As a teacher you'd know that you weren't caring for your students by making them sit in their seats all day silently.  That husband would know that he's not caring for his wife by just letting her clean thinking that she's obsessive about mess instead of asking her what's stressing her out.  All by asking the simple question....why?

In my own life I've seen that by asking why I've learned so much about myself and my surroundings. In my classroom I've learned that one student needs a hug and affection each day because mom works nights and she never sees an older, nurturing female so she's simply craving that maternal affection from someone.  On campus I've learned that my one friend has trouble managing her time because she feels guilty from a past event and bites off more than she can chew sometimes.  I've learned that another friend has trouble with decision making because they truly don't believe that God is good and in control of the situation.

How much better does that equip us to help those around us?  Instead of tackling the symptom, we can go straight for the root of the problem!  Sin is so messy and one sin can have a myriad of symptoms.  The sin of pride can show up as taking on too much, not taking on enough, low self-esteem, boasting, self-doubt, and so much more.  So why do we tend to put a band-aid on something that requires surgery to remove?

Friends, there's so much more to each person than meets the eye.  How about instead of judging/assuming something, let's stop and ask ourselves why they're acting how they are.  Maybe they're lonely, had a family member pass away, are struggling with something huge, or more.  We don't know why everyone does what they do but friends, we can try to be a "man of understanding" to someone.

Who knows!?  You might just learn something about yourself in the process!