Hope and Encouragement
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Following a Bad Example
In recent days I have watched God do some amazing things for me. After years of teaching instability, I finally have a permanent job where I know I don’t have to move schools again or change grades. It was a job I never expected to have offered to me and God made it all come together! God even worked out an awesome grade group team for me. All this after me worrying about the matter for a considerable length of time. What do I do? I continue to follow the bad example of the Israelites. They saw God do so many mighty things to help them escape slavery in Egypt.…
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Living in Grace
Do you ever have those moments when the list of all those things undone or unsaid comes hurtling at you full force? Or maybe you are being tormented by things you did do or say that you really wish you hadn’t. That’s been the state of my week. As the school year winds down my mind whirrs with all the things that I wish I had done for my students. My heart is also heavy with the knowledge that my job has taken away time from my family and all I wanted to do with them. Then there’s the things that have come out of my mouth this week. I…
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The In Between
Have you ever been caught hanging, not really in one place or in another – that wretched place of indecision, confusion, or disillusionment? Those days of not knowing can cause havoc with our systems – both physical and emotional. As I sit in the in between at this moment, my heart is heavy. My brain is foggy and concentrating seems impossible. I am lethargic and strained. This generally out of sorts feeling just drags me down. At moments like these, hope seems fleeting. It is incredibly easy to delve into the bad aspects of the situation and lose sight of the positive. The waiting seems indefinite and my patience weakens.…
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Easter Joy
The trauma is great. Their beloved Messiah has been crucified and buried in a tomb. How can such a thing happen? Distraught feelings permeate the band of Jesus’ followers. Their lives are turned upside-down and they don’t know what is coming next. Sure, Jesus had spoken of returning, but what did that really mean? They feel like they are also targets for Roman punishment and fear is rampant. With all this going on, some of Jesus’ followers venture to His tomb. Scripture describes their encounter as this: “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There…
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Choose Your Attitude
When I am working with my little people each day, the concept of attitude comes up regularly. I expend a great deal of effort to convey to them that they are not in control of what others do, but they do have a choice in how they will respond to other people or situations. Still, they come and tattle and say that someone is doing something to them. They whine and complain and feel hard done by when things are not as they should be. Some students get mired in the feeling of injustices done to them to the point where they are exceedingly unhappy and unproductive. As I watch…
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The Worry Monster
I know the verse. It permeates my mind when I am in distress. My head knows what it says, yet why can’t I internalize it? 1 Peter 5:7 starts out with these precious words – “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” The operative word here is “all”. God wants us to lay all those anxious thoughts at the foot of the Cross. So why does the worry monster take control of our lives instead? Why is it often so difficult to trust God and His promises in times of challenge and adversity? Right now, there are a few things in life that are causing me…
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Where Did I File That?
In my work as a teacher, one of my tasks is to help my children learn how words are put together in order to both read and write them. After a few days of doing excellent work on spelling words on their individual whiteboards I asked my students to write a story. As I made my rounds, checking student work in progress, I was surprised to see many of them incorrectly spelling words in their stories that we had been working on lately in word study. The next day as I talked about the importance of putting what they learned about words into practice, I grabbed a piece of paper…
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Imitate What is Good
You’ve met them. They frequent almost every crowd and ease their way into situations where they are not welcome. On the outside they might appear to be all they should be, but they harbour deep feelings of entitlement and superiority. These people figure their agenda is always the correct one. After all, they know better than everyone else, so they think. A connected value they seem to share is that of selfish ambition. They are thinking more of their own advancement and power than the needs and wants of others. The Church is not immune to the influence of people like these. Most church groups have those that fit this…
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Could I Have a Compliment Please?
My head is reeling. Where do these words come from? How can someone I think of as a friend say something so hurtful? I had been happily walking along my school hallway when I met up with someone whom I trust very much. Our conversation was short, yet it pummeled me in the gut. All my old insecurities reached for the surface and pain took over. I struggled through the remainder of the afternoon and when I reached my car at the end of the day, the tears flowed freely. As I made my long commute home, I tried to process all that was said to me. Having someone question…
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Miracles From Heaven
Sometimes something comes across your path that just inspires you. God is like that. He reaches out to us in so many ways, touching our hearts with His message of love and hope. Recently I watched the movie Miracles from Heaven. It is a moving true story about a young girl who has an incurable stomach disorder. Her journey of pain is a difficult one to watch – throwing up constantly, being fed through a tube, living with a distended stomach, enduring multiple procedures and tests. My mother heart ached as I watched the mother in the story fight to find out what was really wrong with her daughter and…
