Appreciation

This past week was Teacher Appreciation Week. At my school, we teachers are immensely blessed with meals throughout the week put together by parents! It was delicious and so thoughtful of them to do. Thank you so much to everyone for your kindness!!


I was reflecting quite a bit on my job during this week. I can not imagine ever doing another job as long as I live. I love teaching with my whole heart. It it challenging, frustrating, and exhausting, but it is also incredibly rewarding, ridiculously fun, and so full of joy.

 

So in the spirit of appreciation, I wanted to list my favorite moments as a teacher, the times that I love and appreciate.  Some general, some specific, but it will give you an idea of why I love my job so freaking much.

• Dress up days: Willy Wonka, Pippi Longstocking, Viola Swamp, a crazy Christmas sweater...I love them all!
• That moment when you watch a student "get it". You can see whatever concept you have been working hard to teach finally click in their brain and they understand. Awesomeness.
•  When the older students interact with the younger students and it makes the little kid's day.
• Acting ridiculous just to make a high schooler give you the slightest smile. Not too big though... they still have to be cool.
• Being able to pray each week with my coworkers for our students.
  
• Reading aloud to my students.
• Laughing with my students.
• Laughing with my coworkers :)
•  Former students still wanting to give me hugs.
• Students and teachers singing hymns together at devotions.
• When a lesson goes really, really well!
• The pure happiness on my students' faces when I give them a bonus recess.
• Watching a student read their first chapter book.
  
• When my students eagerly and excitedly discuss God, the Bible, and how they want to serve the Lord when they grow up.
  
• The end of the year, when you look back at where you started and cannot believe that all of a sudden another year is done and the kids are ready for 3rd grade.

The Lord has been so good to me in my 3 years at RTCS. I have said it before, I will say it now, and I will continue to say it--teachers have the best job in the entire world! So thankful for all those at my school who work so hard every single week and for the teachers all around the world who teach their hearts out for their students.

Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."                                 

Moments

The other night I treated myself to a redbox movie. It had been a meh kind of day and snuggling in my bed while watching a movie sounded just delightful!

The movie was titled "About Time". It was a movie about a young man who finds out he is able to travel back in time. Not forward, just backwards.

He travels back after various mistakes and mishaps in life, but then realizes while trying to fix things, he often messes them up far worse than before. All in all, he learns the lesson that life happens! It's all the little nix and bruises that make everything worth while and changing the bad changes the good things too. This was kind of a "no duh" lesson that you know he will learn right from the beginning, but even still, I found myself weeping at the end.

Shocker. I'm kind of a crier if you haven't learned that about me already.

It mostly hit me because I started to think about my life and what I would go back to relive, especially since life seems to be whizzing by these days! What were those days that were so fantastic that you couldn't help but have a silly grin? While big moments came to mind, like graduation, vacations, so on, the things that really stuck out were little things. Great times spent with people that I love. If I could go back to relive moments, I don't think I would choose a big event, rather I would choose the small ones.

I would choose Sunday after church at my Grandma and Grandpa's house, with all my cousins home, and us making fun of each other and being way too loud. I would choose late nights in college, laughing and being ridiculous with my friends, not caring about our bedtime or eating far too much junk. I would choose singing with my "sisters" around the piano in the DeMaster's house. I would choose sitting on my Grandma Ongna's lap when I was little, watching her carefully as she teaches me how to back-stitch on the sewing machine. I would choose a week night dance party with Julia in our house in Forest Hills. I would choose a Taco Bell run with my dear friend Kim. I would choose doing farm work with my parents in the summer time under a perfectly blue sky, when life seemed so incredibly simple. There are hundreds of moments I could choose.

Life's small moments have this tendency to make a big impact. And not because of the moments themselves, but because of the people that were there for those moments. God blesses us with people to walk with in this life, the exact people that we need. So here's to all the moments, big, little, and the people who make those moments into memories.

Time to Listen

As I was driving home from my cousin's house tonight, I was listening to the radio, per usual. Except for tonight, Pittsburgh radio stations were filled with somber messages and tributes for those attacked at Franklin Regional this morning.

While I was listening to people talk about those they know that helped and offering their prayers for those wounded, tears started streaming down my face. I had only one thought burst into my mind.

Lord, we need you! 

All of these shootings and attacks are simply horrific. Today's was particularly tough, having taken place so very close to home.  And you know that through the next weeks, talks will be made about violence, safety, what can be done, etc. But all of the awful things in this world boil down to one word.

Sin.

The Lord created this world perfectly, beautifully, and then created man in His own image. His own image! Then He created a helper for that man. They lived in the phenomenal garden, walking and talking with God, caring for the creatures, until....

...until the serpent came and things were never the same. From the moment Eve bit into that apple, sin entered this world. Since then our world has been filled with every type of evil you can imagine. God's beautiful creation has been warped and twisted by humans. Most days the world is just fine stewing in it's sin.

It is days like today that make me realize how badly we need our Savior. The only way out of the muck and mire of this world is to cling to the one who came to this world, lived perfectly, and died painfully, all for the sake of saving us from our sins!

One of my favorite quotes from C. S. Lewis is this:


 

The Lord is begging us to come to Him, to be freed and forgiven of our sins! To live a life that is honoring and glorifying to Him, to spend eternity in paradise with Him! How can we not run to Him with open arms? He is calling out to this deaf world. Isn't it about time we listen?