Faith is a journey...This is mine

Faith is a journey...This is mine

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Ivory Towers and God's Hands

This second year of teaching has had its ups and downs and lately, it has been really difficult. My classes are all really big, lots of really bright kids and lots of kids that need a lot of TLC. I love my job. It is the best. I work with some of the best educators in the world and I wouldn't trade it (shout-out to LCMS 8th grade team teachers!). With my two co-taught sections I have tremendous support from two awesome Special Education teachers who go above and beyond for all kids. As a person who has lived (and mostly thrived) with both a learning and physical disability, I have a spot in my heart and soul for children with similar challenges. I want to help them to succeed, to meet their full potential and beat the odds. I know from personal experience it is possible and I want to help them get there. Most of the time, I meet challenge and I triumph but sometimes I struggle. 

If I am honest, I have lived a very sheltered life. I went to Catholic school, have a very close-knit (albeit very large) family, a close circle of friends who come from similar backgrounds, I was blessed enough to live in a safe area of town and go to good schools. All of this is wonderful and has made me into who I am today. It has also been a sort of ivory tower. In accepting a teaching position over a year ago, I stepped out of that tower. I've been met with realities strikingly different from own in the last several months. I've gotten a good look at the way life can really be. Every single bit of life can have a dark side. I have heard this in books. Now I can say I've seen it first hand. And it's hard. It hurts. To see situations that I can't fix or help is enough to make me want to turn and flee for shelter. To shut it out. In placing me where He has as a teacher, God is continually prying my hands from my eyes, making me see the evil in the world. He says to me, "You cannot conquer the evil, Little One. I can." He has extended an invitation for me to help Him.

I can't explain the heartbreak that is seeing a child as a victim of their circumstances. These children don't mean to be difficult, exhausting, rude, hurtful, or spiteful. I know that. They act this way out of an attempt to cope with their world, a world so traumatic that I cannot begin to understand it. And while I silently repeat the mantra, "Love them anyway" in my head it isn't always enough to stop the rage that boils in my heart. Love them even when they exhaust you, hate you, curse you and push you way. Love them anyway. This isn't always enough to keep me from feeling like I am failing my students. There isn't enough of me. I can't help these few that so desperately need more than just school and still manage to help those that just want to understand this week's close reading selection. Love them anyway. 

Some days, like the last two, I stand in my classroom and marvel. So many needs, so many hurts, so much wonder, amazement and strife. I know these children. I know their stories. Some of them are enough to turn your stomach and make you cry. So many needs and I am one person. Am I really able to do this at all? Do they know that I love them in spite of the gray hair they give me? 

There came one of these moments on Thursday (I think it was Thursday), while the kids were working on position papers in writer's workshop. I was moving from group to group, proofreading, editing, helping with MLA Works Cited pages when one of my more difficult students, decided to leave the room. I had to try to persuade the student to stay and then when that failed I had to call administration. This caused a distraction to all, of course. Students were asking for help left and right, one young man needed to go to his locker, another to the library, I had a school psychologist and a vision teacher observing and I had this moment, in all of this chaos, where I looked at the mess that was my room and thought, "This is my circus, and those are my monkeys..." Not good, friends. Not good at all. The tears were so close to the surface it wasn't even funny. 

Friday was no better, but at least I didn't have visitors there to watch me flounder. I have to wonder, why does God let these things happen to children? He is an all powerful, omniscient being and yet, He lets children live in chaos and squalor. Why? Why does He stand by and let these things happen?  I'm hit with white hot anger at these situations, I ask the questions and then my faith kicks in. The answer is, He lets it happen because He has to. It's called freedom of choice. He gifted us with it. I think it is like this, He made the world a co-operative initiative where we as humans get to decide to go His way or to refuse to go His way. I choose each day, to go His way.

And so, He pries my hands from my eyes day after day. You see, conquering evil is a joint venture. God and me. With God in me, working through me, He conquers evil every time. He sees the children, as I see them, His heartbreaks too. He knows there are days when I am tired, when my heart is shattered for the ones I know deep down I cannot help. In those moments, He aches with me. And after listening to me pour my heart out in sadness, rage, agony, or weariness, He helps me to find the courage to do it all again tomorrow. I am His hands. I choose this struggle. Even when it threatens to overcome me, it won't because God is in me. 

One soul. One child. The reality is that I may only help one child. I may only ever truly leave an imprint on one child's heart. It's worth it. I forget that sometimes. "Love them anyway." The work of my heart, teaching, is love made visible. Even to those children that test every bit of my patience and exhaust every one of my efforts to help them I have to believe that it is their hearts I am helping. Even if they don't know now, or ever, I will always know, I loved them anyway. 

84,000 Prayers
~Teresa

Monday, February 1, 2016

Musings on Discernment

Proverbs 15:14 says, "The discerning heart seeks knowledge..."(NABRE). As a Catholic, I accept this truth wholeheartedly. But what is discernment? Is it only reserved for people considering religious life? How do you know when you are done discerning? How do you know what your answer is?

According the Merriam-Webster dictionary discernment is defined in two ways:

1. The ability to judge well.

2. (in Christian contexts) Perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual direction and understanding.

Discernment for me means weighing big decisions with a prayerful heart and open mind. It means that I open to and trusting of God's will in my life. Personally, I believe that discernment is ongoing process. I have discerned religious life, career choices, moving choices, volunteer opportunities, pets, all kinds of things. I don't want to make discernment sound flippant or silly. It is a very serious thing. I am the type of person that tries to approach all decisions seriously and with thought. 

I think that being able to discern has a lot to do with self control and knowing that life impacting decisions need time and serious thought to make. 

I know that I am guilty of getting caught up in the moment and the excitement of new things or possible outcomes to situations. It is in these moments that it is hardest to step back and take stock of the situation and really listen to what God's plan is for me. 


Image result for spiritual discernment quotes
"The ability to see things for what they REALLY are and not for what you WANT them to be." Powerful isn't it?
This truth about discernment is clarifying and it is also terrifying. It means that in order to truly discern something I must abandon the outcomes that I have created in my head (I'm a girl, that's what we do) and I need to give it all to Christ. I then need to prayerfully and openly consider all options, possibilities and God's will. It means that I have to trust His plan. He already knows the outcome. He wrote it before I was in the situation. My job is to pray, listen, and seek Him. 

As I put all of this in black and white, the process seems simple. I know from past experience that it is far from easy. Often it is exciting, scary, frustrating, and even heavy at times. This jumble of feelings comes from my humanness. Every once in a while when discerning something, I forget that I have given the matter to God and I try to "hurry up and find the answer because God has bigger things to deal with" (this should be read as, "get what I want/think I need because I think I know best"). When this happens, frustration kicks in. Fear kicks in when I lose focus on discerning God's will and focus on the worry that the outcome will impact me negatively. 

I have found that for me, the key to discernment is patience (a continual work in progress for me), prayer, and remembering that God works all things for my good in His own time. His time, not my time. Big difference.

So how do I know when I have an answer to something I am discerning? Well, I have peace over the matter. It is a feeling of joy, quiet and reassuring joy. I don't hear a little voice telling me the  answer. I just have peace and joy fill my heart.  I can't speak to how other people know they have an answer to something they are discerning. It never hurts to ask, my friends. 

I am discerning currently. It is something that I praying almost constantly about. I have to remember that everything is in God's hands and He knows what He is doing. I'm not alone in this discernment, not by a long shot. 

I am praying for you and all of your intentions. Will you pray for me?

84,000 Prayers,
~Teresa