It seems my goal of blogging once a week was an unrealistic goal, but better late than never, right?
The last couple weeks have been filled with some really good challenges for me, and some I have brought my A-game, and some I have not. We have one day left of classes and then Christmas Fair celebrations on Friday. After that, we head home for Christmas!! I am really looking forward to seeing people from home. Even more so to eating all that delicious food you can only find in the States!
Last week and this week, I have had to prove myself as a teacher, and to be honest, I don't know that I'm doing that. Some days look really positive, and others look like a train wreck. It's been hard for me to seek what God is doing in all of this, but nonetheless, if He gives me a chance to keep fighting for my place here, than I will do exactly that. I will not give up. If I do, it's not really giving up so much as it is God telling me He's got a different path for me to take next. I am learning how to be okay with that. I am also learning it is normal to doubt your own abilities, which is why it is so critical to be in God's presence and keep seeking His will for my life. At this point, I am honestly at a place where I can genuinely say I love these kids with every fiber of my being, however, I do not love the job of teaching itself. There are several reasons for that. First, I am still a first year teacher and still figuring out what I'm doing. Second, I will always be learning, which means there will be plenty of room for mistakes, which I seem to be encountering a lot more often these days than not. Third, I've always had a passion for forming relationships with kids, but I've never been all that good at drawing a line in which we are friends, but I am firstly their teacher. That's probably the hardest thing for me. It's so hard because this job is a ministry in itself, whether you each at a Christian school or not. I like to take advantage of every opportunity I get to connect with my kids and help them learn something new about the Lord and His love for them.
Having said all that, I love it here. I really do. However, I am taking it all in with an open hand, trusting that at any moment He may call me away from here and on to something different. It will break my heart, for sure, but I know He does these things to strengthen us and to remind us HE is in control, not us. I hate accepting that sometimes, but then I also love it because it takes me off the hook from having to know what my future holds myself.
On a different note, the weather back home is ridiculous! I mean, we don't even get SNOW here, let alone weather below 40 degrees. The coldest it's been here is maybe 50 this year. Crazy. Illinois is supposed to get some really bad snow over the weekend, when I'm supposed to be flying home. If you could pray for the weather to be just good enough to still let me fly without any (or at least not many) delays.
Still clinging to this verse:
Philippians 1:6 " being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Burn The Ships
Sorry it's been a while since my last one. My last couple weeks here have been filled with lots of good moments, as well as some harder ones. It started last Friday when my 9th grade students began presenting a song that has had some affect on their faith life with Christ. One of my students presented the song "Burn the Ships" by Steven Curtis Chapman. I had never heard it before, so it was a little mind blowing listening to this young man in my class explain the historical background. The meaning behind it is back during a battle (don't ask me which one, I never claimed to be good at history) where Cortes, the commander in charge, was fighting with his soldiers in Mexico and all of his men wanted to go back because they knew they wouldn't win. Cortes' response was NOT what they wanted to hear. He literally had them burn all of their ships, as a symbol that they were NOT turning back. They would keep fighting and they would either win or die. His reasoning? God had brought them thus far and just because circumstances changed, the original truth that they were right where God wanted them had NOT changed. My 9th grade student was used by God in a mighty way that morning. It's like God was speaking right to me, reminding me that anything worth having in life is worth fighting for. I've listened to that song many, many times since then, just reveling in the truth it holds. I've decided to burn my ships and fight my heart out to be here and to succeed.
Having said that, this past week has been my mos enjoyable week I've had so far, which you know is saying a lot if you have been keeping up with these blogs. Anyway, I've finally started to stop letting every. little. thing. bother me and let some things go that just aren't worth fighting for. I thought it was only me who noticed the change, but by Thursday, some of my students seemed to notice it, too, which felt really good.
My favorite moment this week, and one of my all time "proud teacher moments" so far, was with my 8th grade class. We've been doing these "One Minute Presentations" where they pick a random topic from a container and talk about it, anything they want to say, for 60 seconds. The point is to be practicing their fluency and get used to being in front of the class more often. One of my students has been extremely shy and not confident in her English speaking ability. So, for the past 3 presentations, she gets up and says about three words and then gives up and sits back down. This week, after trying to encourage her to the best of my ability, she got up there and spoke for the ENTIRE 60 seconds! Not only that, but she did a pretty dang good job! Then, the next day when I saw her, she had a huge smile on her face and I told her how proud I was of her, and I could just tell that she was really proud of herself, too. It's moments like these that I live for in teaching.
One thing that's been a struggle is my 7th grade class. They have NOT gotten used to the fact that they need to turn their work in, and therefore they rack up quite a few zeros in the grade book because they never bother handing in all their work. We had a meeting with all the parents, AND the students were all present. It was really good for them to be able to hear their teachers worries as well as their parents' own thoughts. Needless to say, after offering them half the credit back for late work if they turned it in the very next day, I had a LOT of kids rushing up to give me their work. Just when we were worried they didn't care about their grades, there is STILL HOPE!
Some other exciting happenings were we FINALLY got to go see Catching Fire this past weekend, and it was AWESOME! I guess we really didn't have to wait that long, it'd only been out a week by the time we went, but if felt like forever to me. The best part is being able to talk about it with so many of my students now, because we're ALL big Hunger Games fans around here. We also had our school Spelling Bee on Wednesday. Fun fact about Miss Brenna, I LOVE spelling bees! It was so fun seeing my kids go up and try their very best to win. It's so cute how nervous they get, and the best part is when the winner is a super shy girl. Yup, my 7th grade girl, Itzel, won the bee! It was so special to be a part of that. Plus, it's always fun when we get to do a school wide activity of some sort that gets us out of our regular school routine and gets the kids excited.
As good as this last week was, there were still some hard moments, for sure. Not only that, but last Saturday morning, my family said goodbye to my grandpa Charlie. It's so hard being away from family when something like that happens, but I also trust that God does everything for a reason. It just makes me even more excited to go home and see all my family and friends. Speaking of, I'll be home in two weeks! If you're praying you could just lift up these last two weeks up, because as exciting as it is to visit home, this is a really exciting time at the school, too, and I don't want to miss out on that by being preoccupied with thoughts of home. Also, something really difficult came up yesterday for me. I can't exactly talk about it, but I can tell you that I need prayer for it, LOTS of prayer. I've been dealing with a lot of anger over it today, but a dear friend here reminded me the only way to defeat the devil's schemes is to be in the Word, which is exactly where I've been dwelling throughout the day today.
I'll end on this note, from the NLT: James 1:19-21 "Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls."
So, yes, times are a little bit hard here for me right now, but I'm still choosing to burn my ships and stick it out. Maybe you need to burn your ships, too. Stay in the fight. Don't give up. If God called you to something, He doesn't change His mind just because your circumstances may have changed. He also does not get worried or bothered by the things that we do. So, give Him your troubles and let HIM take care of them. Maybe I really just wrote that part for myself, because I just need to keep repeating it so I don't forget where it is God wants my heart to be. If I'm focused on myself, I can't focus on Him. So, let's burn those ships, people!
Rest In Peace, Grandpa Charlie. Life here will certainly not be the same without you.
Having said that, this past week has been my mos enjoyable week I've had so far, which you know is saying a lot if you have been keeping up with these blogs. Anyway, I've finally started to stop letting every. little. thing. bother me and let some things go that just aren't worth fighting for. I thought it was only me who noticed the change, but by Thursday, some of my students seemed to notice it, too, which felt really good.
My favorite moment this week, and one of my all time "proud teacher moments" so far, was with my 8th grade class. We've been doing these "One Minute Presentations" where they pick a random topic from a container and talk about it, anything they want to say, for 60 seconds. The point is to be practicing their fluency and get used to being in front of the class more often. One of my students has been extremely shy and not confident in her English speaking ability. So, for the past 3 presentations, she gets up and says about three words and then gives up and sits back down. This week, after trying to encourage her to the best of my ability, she got up there and spoke for the ENTIRE 60 seconds! Not only that, but she did a pretty dang good job! Then, the next day when I saw her, she had a huge smile on her face and I told her how proud I was of her, and I could just tell that she was really proud of herself, too. It's moments like these that I live for in teaching.
One thing that's been a struggle is my 7th grade class. They have NOT gotten used to the fact that they need to turn their work in, and therefore they rack up quite a few zeros in the grade book because they never bother handing in all their work. We had a meeting with all the parents, AND the students were all present. It was really good for them to be able to hear their teachers worries as well as their parents' own thoughts. Needless to say, after offering them half the credit back for late work if they turned it in the very next day, I had a LOT of kids rushing up to give me their work. Just when we were worried they didn't care about their grades, there is STILL HOPE!
Some other exciting happenings were we FINALLY got to go see Catching Fire this past weekend, and it was AWESOME! I guess we really didn't have to wait that long, it'd only been out a week by the time we went, but if felt like forever to me. The best part is being able to talk about it with so many of my students now, because we're ALL big Hunger Games fans around here. We also had our school Spelling Bee on Wednesday. Fun fact about Miss Brenna, I LOVE spelling bees! It was so fun seeing my kids go up and try their very best to win. It's so cute how nervous they get, and the best part is when the winner is a super shy girl. Yup, my 7th grade girl, Itzel, won the bee! It was so special to be a part of that. Plus, it's always fun when we get to do a school wide activity of some sort that gets us out of our regular school routine and gets the kids excited.
As good as this last week was, there were still some hard moments, for sure. Not only that, but last Saturday morning, my family said goodbye to my grandpa Charlie. It's so hard being away from family when something like that happens, but I also trust that God does everything for a reason. It just makes me even more excited to go home and see all my family and friends. Speaking of, I'll be home in two weeks! If you're praying you could just lift up these last two weeks up, because as exciting as it is to visit home, this is a really exciting time at the school, too, and I don't want to miss out on that by being preoccupied with thoughts of home. Also, something really difficult came up yesterday for me. I can't exactly talk about it, but I can tell you that I need prayer for it, LOTS of prayer. I've been dealing with a lot of anger over it today, but a dear friend here reminded me the only way to defeat the devil's schemes is to be in the Word, which is exactly where I've been dwelling throughout the day today.
I'll end on this note, from the NLT: James 1:19-21 "Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls."
So, yes, times are a little bit hard here for me right now, but I'm still choosing to burn my ships and stick it out. Maybe you need to burn your ships, too. Stay in the fight. Don't give up. If God called you to something, He doesn't change His mind just because your circumstances may have changed. He also does not get worried or bothered by the things that we do. So, give Him your troubles and let HIM take care of them. Maybe I really just wrote that part for myself, because I just need to keep repeating it so I don't forget where it is God wants my heart to be. If I'm focused on myself, I can't focus on Him. So, let's burn those ships, people!
Rest In Peace, Grandpa Charlie. Life here will certainly not be the same without you.
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