Lesson(s) Learned

Scars, Marks, and Understanding the Difference between the Two Every morning, I get an email-devotion sent straight to Gmail. Some mornings I get up, read it, and kind of forget about it. Some days, I don’t get to read it until the afternoon or nighttime. But this morning, however, I woke up to the sound of my devotion-email being delivered to my phone, which happened to arrive to my inbox before 7a.m. Bless them. All jokes aside, I’m sort of glad that I woke up to this devotion-email this morning because I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what I needed to read. (and maybe what some of you need to read also, so I’m going to do what I’ve been teaching my precious twin-toddler-nephews to do: I’m going to “share, share, share, share, share!”) And here goes… My devotion-in-an-email this morning centered around Job13:23b, 27, “Show me my offense and my sin… You keep a close watch on all my paths by putting marks on the soles of my feet .” Ok. There it is. So, I’m unsure ...

I’m not really a fan of country music, unless Taylor Swift counts (I’m pretty sure she doesn’t). With Taylor Swift included or not, I do, oddly enough, know my fair share of “country” music lyrics. One song that has always kind of stuck with me is the one that says, “I thank God for unanswered prayers.” (See, I don’t even know who sings it or what the name of the song is… this just goes to show that I’m so-not-a-country-music-fan.) I don’t know about you, but I don’t thank God for ‘unanswered’ prayers. Know why? They simply don’t exist. For a long time, I kind of thought and felt like they did. I’ve literally spent entire seasons of my life before praying and crying to God about situations in my life that I wished turned out differently than they did. Even if unanswered prayers did somehow exist, I don’t think I’d thank God for them. I think I’d struggle with them. I’d obsess over them. I’d make them a constant concern on my heart/mind. I’d lose sight of G...

The Beauty of Supervision Today, I had a rush of childhood memories flood back into my mind as I sat in my fourth-grade classroom amidst a group of seven students. We had a group project to undertake in History today, and the curriculum only accounted for 6 students to be in a group. In a class with 7 students, I knew that a curriculum plan for 6 would be a no-go. You simply can’t assign everyone a “job” or a “responsibility” in the group and just let one person off scot-free. So, what did I do? I had no other choice but to create a position. The name of the position? “Group Supervisor” Here’s the description that I made up to go with it: “The Group Supervisor holds the clipboard and the ‘Miss Hill’ signature stamp. Every time the group completes a step of the project correctly, the group supervisor will stamp the checklist and tell the group to keep going.” Pretty lame idea, right? I thought no one would’ve went for it. I couldn’t have been more wrong...

The strangest thing happened in my classroom today. Granted, it was Valentine’s Day. Mustaches and mustache jokes were running rampant. If I had a nickel for every time I heard, “I mustache ask you to be mine” followed by a classroom full of giggles, I’d be a pretty rich teacher today. It never got old. Seriously, it was funny every time it was said. I’m dearly-so-thankful that my kiddos have such an overall FUN sense of humor. I don’t know what I’d do if they didn’t. Aside from all of the excitement of our sugar-filled day, the strangest thing happened in my classroom. For Math lesson today, the kids were given multiplication and division facts all jumbled up. After they figured out the missing numbers, they were supposed to match up the multiplication and corresponding division problems and label them as a “multiplication match.” (Yes, it was complete with hearts – just to give it a Valentine-y edge. :) ) For this activity, I put them into partner-groups, so the...

Sometimes, I like to make "deals" with God. Don't look at me that way... you know you've done it too. At the very least, you've thought about it. The deals I'm talking about look and sound something like this... "God, if You ______________, then I'll _______________." Oftentimes, in my own life, these kinds of prayer-deals with God flow from a result of uncertainty and a pure desire to have a "clear sign" from God on which way to go, what decision to make, what to do next, the timescale of when I should act on something, etc. However, sometimes, these kinds of prayer-deals that I make with God are a result of impatience or a lack of trust on my part. If God gave us all the "clear signs" we asked for, we'd start worshipping the signs and not the One whose very signature is written all over our entire beings. As a common worship song reminds us, "from life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny....

Why Skylar Dixon is my Hero I’m not a big follower of the show American Idol, but I have watched my fair share of episodes/seasons in a hit-or-miss fashion. I especially watched episodes consistently when Skylar Dixon’s brother, Colton Dixon, was on the show. He was refreshingly different to watch. He had true talent and a knack for connecting to his audiences. It also helped that he was a Christian and an all-out good-looking guy. Then, I soon found out he was born in the 1990’s, and I felt creepy for watching the show like I once did. So the American Idol fan train stopped there for me on that very same day. Though I no longer followed the show, I still very much appreciate and enjoy hearing Colton’s song, You Are, on Christian radio on my way to work. It helps me put things in perspective. Check it out if you get a chance: Colton Dixon’s “You Are” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM8hxE-j4T8 Though it’s pretty much the same ole’, same ole’ rig-a-ma-role every s...

The trouble with dreaming is that all dreams come with a price tag. This thought came to me a couple weeks ago when my family and I visited a new restaurant “hot spot” here in Jacksonville (Maple Street Biscuit Company in San Marco to be exact).  At this particular best-biscuit-breakfast-ever-location, one of their trademarks (or quirks?) is to ask each customer, “What is your dream vacation destination?” upon placing an order. When your order is ready, instead of calling out your family’s name (boring!), they call out the dream vacation spot in its place. The question will catch you off-guard for sure, but, all in all, it’s fun. It’s cutesy, even. It’s surprisingly original. It’s refreshingly unique. It also reveals something about people. It reveals…. Wait for it….             Where they would rather be.              Where their mind w...