healing

Music is part of the heartbeat of my life because it proclaims truth about the Lord through an avenue of beauty, power, conviction and authority.  I carefully sensor what music I listen to because music is such an important part of my heart-attitude.   Lately, I have had this song playing on repeat.  I have decided to wait upon the Lord because He is my rock and my redeemer.   I don't know what I'm waiting for but I know that there are chains in my life that need to be broken and healing that can only happen as the Lord opens my eyes to who He is.  I am starting to wrap up two years of hard work and the never-ending push to be better then I already am is finally starting to slow down.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not done yet but as I continue to reach significant milestones in this process, I am reminded that what has already been accomplished is far greater then what is left.   I know that the Lord will show up in my life to accomplish what He desires, my job is to trust Him and walk in obedience to what He has planned despite how raw my life is right now.     

You'll Come:
Verse 1
I have decided I have resolved
To wait upon you Lord
My rock and redeemer shall not be moved
I?ll wait upon you Lord

Pre Chorus
As surely as the sun will rise
You'll come to us
As certain as the dawn appears

Chorus
You'll come let your glory fall
As you respond to us
Spirit reign flood our hearts
With holy fire again

Verse 2
We are not shaken we are not moved
We wait upon you Lord
Our Mighty deliverer my triumph and truth
I'll wait upon you Lord

Bridge
Chains be broken
Lives be healed
Eyes be opened
Christ is revealed

Finishing strong!

Tomorrow is my LAST day of student teaching!  I am burning the midnight oil and working really hard to wrap this experience up well.   At this point I am tired, overwhelmed and stressed which makes it hard for me to effectively tackle my loooooong to-do list but I am taking things one thing at a time.  


I'm so close but as of right now, not nearly close enough.  Time to get to work! 

the end is in sight!

T-minus two weeks until I am done Student Teaching!  Despite the fact that the things I need to accomplish between now and the 23rd are nearly impossible to complete given this time frame, I can't stop smiling about how far I have come. 

At one point in this process I expressed to my mom that I had "too many holes in my bucket" for it to retain life, hope, encouragement or energy.   I was drained across my entire spectrum of resources but by the grace of God and the perseverance that comes from working for the Lord, I am standing two weeks away from the finish line, thrilled about what has been accomplished and rejoicing in the sustaining grace of the Lord.   

One of the ways that I am proactively conquering my to-do list is by staying late at school Monday - Friday.   I want to honor the Lord, my teacher and myself by ending this process well and that means creating lots of un-interrupted work time.  I have been staying at school late for two weeks now and it's been a really positive change.  The days are long because I leave my apartment before 7am and don't get home until after 7pm but I have been able to set up all of the materials I need without having to get permission from my teacher to make copies or go to the library.   I leave school knowing that I am mostly ready for the next day, which has helped lower my stress levels significantly.  With 7pm set as my boundary, I leave most nights with lessons still undone.   Although it would be totally ideal to have the remaining three hours of my day to set student teaching aside, this process hasn't afforded me that luxury just yet.   It takes a lot of time to teach under direction from someone else!

I am praying that my teacher will start taking back some of the teaching responsibilities so that I can work of the remaining two assignments I have left to do.    I have permission to complete the assignments after student teaching is over but I REALLY don't want to do that.   I believe that it is God who prospers me and He will make a way for all of the remaining pieces of this process to fall into place.  
  

moving on

Okay, so this week has thrown it's fair share of ups and downs into my otherwise much-needed time off but, I am ready to move on.   Prior to the tragic apartment flood of 2010, I actually had a ridiculously productive Friday - Monday.   Here are the stats:

Friday: 

Conferences + work day at school 

laundry 

grocery shopping 

knitting 

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning

brought stuff to my storage closest that has been waiting to go up since JANUARY! 

took my car in

watched the biggest loser

painted my toe-nails 

went to bed

Saturday: 

skyped with my friend Carrie 

skyped with my sister Anna

went grocery shopping again :) 

did some crock-pot cooking

worked endlessly on a very large homework assignment

spent some time browsing my cook books 

finished knitting my friend Angela's Christmas blanket (finally!) 

Sunday: 

Took a long shower

spent the majority of the day finishing up my very large homework assignment 

wrote birthday thank-yous

went to an early dinner with my friend Shannon 

lead small group Bible study

went to a very late movie with my friend Shannon

went to bed! 

Monday: 

babysat from 7 - 3:30

went to class

turned in the very long homework assignment :)

went to a late dinner with my friend Kelli

came home to a flooding apartment. . .

And then time kind of stopped.  . until now.   Because it's Thursday and I am ready to get stuff done and stop mourning the loss of my time and some of my favorite stuff.   Life happens.  Here I sit in my favorite Panera, eating a deliciously early lunch, surrounded by stacks of folders and a crumbled to-do list.  My next step is to work until I can't work anymore and then evaluate and potentially edit my spring break to-list after that.   No one plans for their apartment to flood.  No one intends to surrender the opportunity to successfully complete things in order to deal with yucky water in places it doesn't belong.   So - this flood never made it onto my to-do list but that's okay because I'm moving on.   Starting now, I am praying for focus and peace of mind as I wade through my homework and conquer stress one finished paragraph at a time.  

grateful!

I am at school, wrapping up week 12 of student teaching. I have conferences today and my lead teacher isn't here so I'm sitting in her teacher chair with my work spread all around me, my to-list displayed on the top of all the folders, notebooks and papers. My first conference isn't until 10am so I thought I would spend sometime doing some "life" related things and then transition into more school related things as the day moves forward. So, I thought I would take the opportunity to expose some of the things I am truly thankful for.

Weekends are usually pretty stressful for me because I have SO much to do that has been neglected Monday - Friday in addition to having a Monday deadline for things like lesson plans and homework. For the last 12 weekend, I have struggled to find the resources I need to make plans that don't involve a highlighter, my laptop or my apartment. I am standing up in a wedding at the end of April and the long-anticipated bridal shower weekend was last weekend. I was stressed even thinking about what I had to accomplish in order to pull off the showers, but I am grateful to say that Sunday afternoons shower was a particular success and I felt SO good driving away knowing that my investment was good.


After successfully making it through my Marathon Monday, I made biscuits and gravy from scratch and watched online television with my roommate. It was really fun!

The week marched forward and excitement grew by the day because the 25th was my birthday and my students were planning a surprise (not so surprise) party for me. It was so sweet to feel so celebrated. When I thanked my teacher for the day she said "you are loved" and I know she meant it. It's been such a journey to work with her, and it's been far from easy, but this birthday party is the perfect example of how valuable it is to invest well when you feel like you have nothing to give and to continue to believe that the Lord has greater things in store than what is seen on the surface. I've never been one to weigh my self-esteem based on whether or not people celebrate my birthday, but I have to admit, I was greatly encouraged by the love and enthusiasm that was displayed on my behalf yesterday. It was a really great way to transition into spring break!

reason to smile

As most of you know, I hate math. However, I teach math 1 and a half hours a day! It's been a pretty big step for me, especially since it takes me so long to correct my students math homework. It has finally become routine for me to spend about an hour and a half a day correcting their homework (what can I say, I have to do the math first to make sure it's right!). Occasionally, with my colorful crayola market in hand, I come across answers that make me smile. This one is from my student who bring the most personality to math class:

Write a story problem for the number sentence 11+ 4 =
I have 11 mice pets. Then I found 4 more mice. How many mice is that? 15 mice as pets now.

I'm just going to throw it out there: if I was writing a story problem, pet mice would not be in it! Too funny!

A new kind of positive

Recently, I was talking to a good friend of mine when I admitted that the main force behind me communicating how challenging my life circumstances are is the need to put limits on what others can expect out of me. I believe that we were designed by a perfect Creator to have limitless relationships. We are created to fellowship with and care for one another. Our need for each other is never met because God crafted us in such a way that we will continue to return to one another and to Him.

As a single graduate student, my life looks very different than most. I'm not in "college" but I'm also not living with the same types of freedom as my adult friends. Especially since student teaching started, my resources across all domains (time, energy, emotions, money) have been drained. When I'm running on empty, my knee-jerk reaction is to be extremely conservative with whatever is left in my dwindling tank. The only way that I know how to effectively get people from tapping into my almost-non-existent resources is to tell them how hard my life is or how busy I am. The result of this type of communication is that I end up viewing my life through a raw and painful lens. I am committed to always communicating truth. I avoid drama and seek to see things as they really are. However, when I evaluate the reality of my life through this raw and painful lens, it's what I end up believing. Although it is truth, it's not the only kind of truth that exists in my life.

I was not created to be defined by the things in my life that keep me vulnerable and exposed. I was created to be defined by my creator and His raw vulnerability is the very place my life comes from.

I still don't know how to reconcile how to welcome people in my life with the responsibilities of the extraneous tasks before me, but I do know that Gods intention is not for me to only see the raw and the painful. There is beauty, hope and purpose woven intentionally through my life. It's there regardless of whether or not I acknowledge it.

So, where do I go from here? About two days ago, I began to pray and ask the Lord what kind of a response He wants me to have to this new insight. As I have listened and waited, it's clear that I don't know what the Lord has in store for me, but I want to be in a position to believe that it's good. I felt the Lord prompting me to lay aside my raw and painful lens and trust Him to construct my life the way He desires. He is the author of beauty and I want my life to be beautiful.

Over the last six years, God has very obviously and very intentionally shed a lot of things from my life. Because I chose to follow Christ at very young age, God hasn't shed stereotypical things from my life like redeeming from sin involving addiction, however, the transformation has been just as significant. I know that God's desire for me is to make me like His Son. As sweet as the Lord is, the process of sanctification often stretches our faith further than it's ever been stretched and removes parts of our lives that we enjoy. There are so many days where I feel like God has removed my life instead of giving me life or restoring my life. It's been heartbreaking but I know that Gods wisdom is infinite while my wisdom is finite. God holds my every moment. His intentions for me are good and He's worthy of trust.