Lesson(s) Learned

Funny isn’t it, how life hands you stories, memories, trials, and lessons that you never fully understand the impact of until years later on in life? It’s kind of like getting handed a puzzle piece, and not having any surrounding pieces that match it, so you toss it aside and deem it as “insignificant” or “unnecessary” until – one day, it all makes sense. One such life story came to me when I was in the 8 th grade. It was the summer of 1998, and my church’s youth group decided to take a mission trip to Oklahoma to help with disaster relief from a recent tornado that had taken the entire city literally by storm. Everywhere you looked, there was darkness, destruction, devastation, and teenage kids from all over the nation. You see, this trip was huge, actually. Much larger than just my youth group, it extended its reach out to kids from all around the U.S. of A.  Even though we were from various parts of the country and had next to nothing in common, many youth...

Today, whilst my kiddos were busy learning math lessons about adding, subtracting, and planning out a Thanksgiving meal (on a budget!) from weekly Publix ads / Winn Dixie ads, I was busy learning a little life lesson myself. It all started earlier in the morning when the students were given an assignment to make an acrostic poem about another person in the classroom. Included with the acrostic poem was an illustration of the chosen person's talents, hobbies, likes, dislikes, etc. Oh, and did I mention? It was all to be done on colored construction paper. Why? More professional. Less room for error. Right? Wrong. Shortly after the students started on their acrostic-buddy poems, a student came to my desk and asked to borrow my white out. It happens all the time in fourth-grade classes worldwide. (Ok, maybe not. Maybe it's just my students that have a growing fascination with white out. My current class, and all the girls who shared the same 6th grade classroom with me at TC...

So, you want to change the world? What are you waiting for? I know you used to believe you could. So, what are you waiting for? I know life always turns out differently than you planned, but remind me, what are you waiting for? Waiting on…. enough time to save “enough” money? Time is more valuable than money. Once money is spent, you can always get more. Such is not so with time. Spend your time wisely. Rather, don’t spend. Invest it. (in others). Waiting on… enough “friends” to have a platform to speak? Platforms come and go, so do friends. Don’t cultivate your audience. Cultivate your character. Quality is better than quantity any day. Waiting on… more schooling? You’re already over-educated and over-qualified for a majority of jobs you would enjoy and feel successful at doing. Schooling isn’t a bad thing, but it could very well be a deterrent from the “best” thing for you for now. Waiting on… finding “the one” and run...