Thursday, November 29, 2007

Tired and Ill-prepared...

There are pictures of Thanksgiving coming, and musings on the first 3 months of marriage... but teaching's been so crazy this week, what with grades due and more in it... so they're still coming...not here yet. Bear with me!

Teaching is, well... I love it. The 5th-6th graders are my pride and joy. The 7th and 8th graders teach me lots. And preschool is always wonderful. =D But right now I don't like teaching so much. See, we have our Christmas Concert tomorrow. ... the dress rehearsal tonight was a disaster. It wasn't my kids or me, really, but the fact that the younger kids took three times as long as expected to get their act together. (it's a school-wide concert) So all we had time to do was rehearse seating, exiting/entering, do a few brief sound checks, and a lot of waiting... So we're meeting 30 minutes before the concert tomorrow night. sigh.

In many ways, I feel "out of the loop"... which is bad because I'm partly in charge!! But I just haven't been on top of people like I should have. I forget that these are high and middle-school kids, not Furman students. They can't "pick stuff up" at the last minute: they have to be patiently, LONG-TERM taught. It doesn't help that I woke up sick yet again, and that my temperature rose all day as I was on my feet. Eventually the Aspirin kicked in and brought the fever and pain down, but all I wanted to do the whole day was go to bed. The Lord gave me grace. PLEASE Pray He gets glory somehow tomorrow night, no matter how we sound or what we do/don't do... :(

One more thing that the Holy Spirit pressed on my heart this week was "Don't you want your kids to leave your class feeling that God was the most Real Thing they learned about?" And I do!! I want my preschoolers to go on to kindergarden slightly more ready to listen, read, and of course sing, than the next kid, but more importantly, I want them to pick up on a passion for God!! I want the Bible to be so real to them; nearness to Jesus to be their life's goal! Basically, I want to see my 4-year olds set to grow up into vibrant, passionate, tender, Christians. I want the Jesus of Christmas and the God of Samson to grab their little hearts, so full already of "stinky sin." I want prayer to be seen as so natural, thanksgiving to be an expected second nature, and self-control much easier for them than it is for me! So I've begun to pray for that kind of Spirit as I teach-- for the energy to make these stories come alive, and a heart that is genuinely stirred by them! The wonder on their faces as we talked of God the Son - Jesus- coming to earth to grow up and die for our stinky sin, so that we can run with God again, like Adam & Eve did made me think that God is answering that prayer in some measure.

All you prayer warriors, please pray that I will flee a lazy heart when it comes to teaching-- that I will try my best and love the children God has given me (even the 6th grader who marked his homework paper "Mom, please just sign off on this; I don't really care about it") with all my heart. I need to be so much more organized and understanding than I am!

Going to bed... oh, that sounds so wonderful...
--Christina

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