Lesson(s) Learned

Broken Pencils, Boys, and Dating So it all started a day this past week when I was cleaning out my classroom to pack up and move all my teacher junk to Florida…. and I found a broken pencil on the floor.  then, another.  and yet, another.  Soon, I had a collection of broken pencils in my left hand and some building frustrations in my right mind. "Why so frustrated?" you may ask.  Because the pencils in my hands weren't just any regular broken pencils, broken by natural causes (i.e. the lead had broken off the tops).  No, it looked like they all had been karate-chopped directly down the middle of them for apparently no reason at all. Plus, someone had to pay a ridiculous price for all those brand-new pencils. (I did.) And someone had to clean up those pencils' pieces when they were broken and scattered all over the live-long day. (I did.) And, besides, shouldn't someone be teaching these kids the value of a dollar?? (Ohhhh, believe me, a...

People Pleasing Gone Wild It's true. Most of the time, I'm what you might label a "people pleaser." I like people to be happy with me, and I struggle when people aren't.  Looking back over my life (all 26 years of it), I've noticed that some key decisions I've made were to please people that were instrumental in my life at that time, while other decisions I've made have been based on what I thought the right thing to do was. Because of that, I ended up having to live through various interpersonal issues that arose as a result of people being not being splendidly happy with me. (Not exactly a walk in the park with a snow cone on the fourth of July.) Recently and not-so-recently over the last three years or so, I have wrestled with the idea to move back to Jacksonville or to stay in Lynchburg and teach. The last couple of years, my mind was pre-occupied with this minor hobby of mine called GRAD SCHOOL. But this year, now that grad school i...

The Problem With Us I'll be the first to admit that I have an overactive imagination. I tend to over-symbolize the everyday happenings of life and oftentimes make them out to be far-reaching spiritual lessons. When, in reality, to everyone else, they're just everyday happenings of life. Allow me to explain. Take today for instance. My kids (students) this year have helped me design this little game that enables them to learn vast portions of their Bible memory verses with relative ease. Not to mention they have FUN whilst doing it. "How exactly is this accomplished?" you may (or may not) be asking. Well, it's simple. I either handwrite or type the verses, word for word, on the dry erase board or the SmartBoard. We all say the verses together as a class, then students come up - a handful at a time - and begin erasing off words of their choice. Then, we pause and recite the verse together again. We proceed through this same routine until everyone in the class ha...

I had some random thoughts today. The theme of my thoughts? Hope. But not just any flat-out-boring-sized human hope will do. As in, "I hope it doesn't rain today."  or "The only thing I can do is hope and pray for the best." or "I hope to make a difference in the lives of others." or "I hope for world peace." Blah, blah, bland. These kinds of statements don't necessarily focus on hope, hopefulness, or the hope that is to come in the situations aforementioned. Rather, they disgustingly focus on the hopelessness within the situation(s) at hand, put 'prayer' as a last resort, and depict 'hope' as a destination that may or may not be attainable on this train-ride-go-around of life. And, let me tell you people, that kind of hope simply won't do. Which is why I'm not referring to that kind of hope…. I'm referring to something more. A much greater Hope altogether. In Goof Troop The Movie, dad and son are pictur...

Out of sheer personal curiosity and for no clear objective-meeting reason, I posed this question to my students a handful of weeks ago. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Other than just learning more about my students' ambitions and passions, I'm not really sure what I was looking for with this exercise. Did I want a pat on the back or credit for the things my students would go on in life to accomplish? Not necessarily.  Did I want confirmation of what I already knew about my students' goals - the far-fetched ones and the practical ones alike? Possibly. Was I prepared for what I heard next? No, not at all. Aside from my boys that wanted to become professional Halo gamers/testers, I had a good portion (dare I say 2/3) of my class say they wanted to be….. wait for it…. a TEACHER when they grew up. Wow. Perhaps, God's using me to do something right in the lives of these kids, so that they want to grow up and be a TEACHER just like ME. Or perhaps, ...

The "Sinful" Woman I grew up in what I would call a level-headed, balanced, talked-about-and-lived-out kind of Christian home, faithfully attended a good-'ole Southern Baptist church, and dedicated thirteen years of my almost-perfect-attendance to a Bob-Jones-KJV-only-type Christian school. With the combination of these three "extremes" (if you will), I feel like God well-rounded me, humored me, and taught me many, many life lessons about Him, His standards, His grace, and His unwavering love for me - no matter what. While I agree theologically on some things that go on at Bob Jones, I wouldn't exactly say they've got it right on all accounts. I'm not down with blue-and-pink-genderized sidewalks, nor am I offended if someone flashes off their un-panty-hosed ankles in my direction. However, after reading through and teaching a Bible lesson to my students out of the Bob Jones curriculum today, I have a whole new respect for the writers at BobJonesPr...

Life is in the little things. Yes? Perhaps, you're disagreeing with me already. In fact, as I re-read that first line, I began to disagree with myself somewhat. While "life is in the little things" may sound quaint and carry some weight, aren't  the big issues of life, the decisions, the heartbreaks, the moves, the education, the experiences, the seminars, the Bible studies, the conferences, the successes, the failures, the people we meet, greet, and sometimes-wanna-retreat-from, the things that make us who we are (and who we aren't)? Honestly, I've heard it go both ways. But, after tonight, I'm leaning more toward my initial thought. (Repeat line one.) Life truly is in the little things. While, yes, life is a collage-mosiac-mix of big, small, and medium-sized, everyday-type things, the passion that attaches itself to truly living life is in the little things . Sure, big things jar us up from our lounge chairs of laziness, jump start us onto new ad...