A Day in the Life

Picture it.  I just went for a run, and after running through 80 degrees at 9 o’clock at night, I was laying on my living room floor (this happens often).  My mind started to wander and I literally shot straight up.  I looked around and realized that those are my picture frames on the wall, those are my friends smiling in the pictures with me and that this is in fact MY apartment IN Arizona.

I’m so amazed and just baffled constantly in all that God has brought me through and TO.  Last July I moved across the country, without ever visiting Arizona within a two week time span.  One of those weeks was spent in New York, with very little cell phone and internet reception.  When I tell people this, they tell me I’m brave, I tell them it’s okay to call me crazy, I know I am.  But the truth is, it was all God!

The ways I’ve seen God move in my life are absolutely astounding.  They baffle me to this day that HE chose me, and not only that, but when I mess up daily He continues to choose me, even when I don’t choose Him.  How amazing is that love?! 

I’m finishing up my first year of teaching.  Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it has been easy, because it quite frankly has been far from that, but it has been absolutely amazing and breath taking none-the-less.  The people that God has brought into my life and most of all the wonderful CHILDREN that He has blessed me with amaze me.  I have learned So very much from my students this year.  I don’t think I truly knew what it was to love until I had them in my life.  Till they came in absolutely heart broken over something that happened the night before, or telling me stories about how there was a drive by at their house and they woke up to find the bullet casings on their grass and I sat there and choked back tears to stay strong for them.  Watching them succeed at things they never knew they could do before, and seeing their smiles light up when I told them I would be coming out to recess with them.  I am so eternally grateful for the lives God has touched me with.  I may have not had an influence on these students, but it is just my constant prayer that they see Gods light and love in me and through me, and can feel that always.  My heart is SO full, because of these beautiful little lives I was blessed enough to be a part of. 

Not only has God so clearly had a hand in my classroom, but also in finding a church and finding an area to serve in.  The first person I met in Arizona was my maintenance worker and he introduced me to CCV.  Now, as some of you know, it’s HUGE.  I was a bit apprehensive at first, but I am so blessed by this church.  I’ve been able to meet some wonderful adults through the wonderful high school ministry, been able to feed into some high school girls lives and I will be going on my first mission trip through CCV.  In July I will be heading to Nairobi, Kenya.  Besides my passion for children, I have never felt such a pull and desire on my heart as I have for this mission trip.  I am so excited to see how God moves through this trip.  Pray for me that I may be changed and that I may help to shine Gods light to His people who may have never felt His love and peace before <3

I have grown so much in this year that it astounds me.  I have done things that I always talked about, but never imagined myself doing.  I have truly found my strength in Christ, and learned that there is no other way.  I have learned what love is and how unconditional it truly can be.  I am so thankful for God bringing me to this place that He has, and I just pray that He continues to mold me into the woman He made me to be!

So grateful. So unworthy. So blessed.

I honestly am in pure disbelief that tomorrow I will be 24 years old.  Once upon a time I was worried about getting older and legitimately upset and regretful of birthdays.  But, today I can say I am ready to embrace my 24th year.  God has done some amazing work in my life, and I can’t wait to see what He has in store for this next year.  Through the ups and downs I know that HE alone will support me through all of it.

I was talking with a friend of mine earlier, who is quite in the same position as I was a year ago. Soon to be college graduate and no idea where her life will turn next.  Looking back, I can’t even believe that a year ago that was me.  Arizona has been challenging, and there are days when I wonder why, but God has opened my eyes so many times to the reasons why I am here, and sometimes I’m just at fault for turning away from the amazing signs He’s showing me.  I am so extremely blessed.  Now please don’t think that I have a firm grasp on everything going on in my life, because I don’t, and I still have no idea where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing a year from now.  But, I hold an absolute peace in the fact that I don’t HAVE to know that.  As long as I am following Gods will for my life, I have no doubt that I will end up at the right place at the right time because His way is the only perfect way!

I am so thankful for the changes I’ve made in my life in this past year, the roads that God has lead me down, and especially for the challenges He has placed in my life and helped me overcome.  I know my strength is in Him alone.  I have some amazing people in my life, and while I struggle daily with questions, I know if I hand them over I recieve a peace that is just absolutely indescribable. 

A whole year.  A whole year of changes, and some absolutely major ones.  I decided to walk away from the Catholic faith and pursue a relationship with Jesus.  I moved across the country.  I got a job in something I’m truly passionate about.  I’ve met some amazing people and kept tight bonds with some other spectacular ones. 

God is so faithful, and I fail Him constantly, but I am thankful to know that He loves me anyway <3

I feel like I haven’t legit wrote anything in awhile, and for some reason I feel the need to.

I feel like I’ve been going through an absolute roller coaster of emotions lately.  Some have been absolutely amazing, and some have truly left me hurting.  But, through all of it although I have felt distant at times, God has brought me around 360.  First off all I have to do is look around at this place in my life HE has brought me to.  A year ago, I never would’ve imagined living in Arizona.  In April when I went to the job fair, I definitely felt myself being pulled towards the district I’m in, but even then I didn’t know that anything would actually happen.  This is how I know that God can work all things.  If I have been able to completely uproot my life and somehow still find stability in a brand new place with brand new people, I know that can ONLY be through the grace of God.  I am so BEYOND undeserving, but God lifts me up with his gracious hand daily and puts me back on my feet.

I have truly been given some amazing people to go through my struggles and fellowship with as well. Some that have gone through or are going through similar situations, and it just constantly amazes me that God knew exactly what I needed and has placed it in my life for me.  How can I ever feel distant?  Well, I can feel distant because I’ve somehow turned away from Him, but it’s absolutely amazing to know that He will never turn away from me, He is always beside me and walking with me, guiding my steps as long as I submit to His wonderful will.

I guess what I’m saying is sometimes you have to lose everything and be pulled away from everything that you know to truly find what YOU need.  I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything.  I am so thankful for this place that God has brought me to and I know that as long as I submit to Him and Him alone He will continue laying a perfect path for me.  It doesn’t mean there won’t be storms on the way, it just means He will give me a path to follow to get through those storms.

I am so beyond blessed and unworthy to even write such a post as this.  Thankful beyond words at Gods guidance and this place He has brought me to in my life <3

So I’ve been picking up a couple of books lately on teaching.  I have an absolute passion in me to teach, that I know is just a note on my heart from God telling me this is what I’m meant to be doing with my life.  Now for awhile I questioned where I should be, and just prayed that God moves me where he wants me.  Children everywhere will challenge you, but when you have kids coming to school with so many outside circumstances weighing on them, the job is amplified.

Lately I’ve felt myself dragged down.  I’ve always been the type of person that NEVER let my personal life affect my work.  Shoot, through my first sememster of student teaching I got very little sleep, cried a whole lot and was more stressed out than I ever could’ve imagined, yet I didn’t let any of that show through to my teaching.  The thing is lately, I’ve been so irritable with my kids.  Seeing the little things they do as annoying and trying to stop them from being…KIDS.  Well on Friday I got back to basics with them.  I went out and played football at recess with them.  Can you believe that a TINY thing out of my day.  Yeah it took time out of my lunch, but really a very LITTLE inconvenience to me and the students couldn’t STOP raving about it.  One student 2 hand touched me when I was running in for a touchdown and you would’ve thought he just won the super bowl.  Other students had the biggest smiles on their face and even kids that I see for 30 minutes a day for a Phonics lesson were getting excited that they got to play against a TEACHER.  I get so caught up in the paperwork and the OTHER side of teaching and MY life that I forget to just enjoy those little moments with my kids, and CREATE those little moments for them that help them to get through THEIR day and their lives.  While I was at the library this weekend I picked up 2 different books that I’ve already started getting into, but I’m so excited about it.  The first one is Chicken Soup for the Teachers Soul.  I figured a little inspiration couldn’t do me any harm.  The other one is called The Love Revolution, which I’m only a chapter in and I can already tell it is going to be amazingly life changing.  I so just pray that God can help me to be bigger than myself and be my strength in the times that I will always fail.

I found this quote in Chicken Soup for the Teachers Soul and it put so much light on what I’ve been feeling…

I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom.  It’s personal approach that creates the climate.  It’s my daily mood that makes the weather.  As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a persons life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.  I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a person humanized or dehumanized.  -Haim Ginott

If you’re a teacher, or have an recollection of your school years, especially elementary, you  know just how true this quote is.  I plan on reading this quote every morning till it is cemented in my head.  I have so much control over how each child in my classroom feels for the day and how their day goes that it’s scary.