Sticks and Stones

I don't know why TV shows always seem to elicit big thoughts...but I guess that just shows what a TV junkie I am. So, watching One Tree Hill on Netflix, I watched the episode where a student brings a gun into a school. He wounded one, and shot himself. When we were little, we were all taught the expression, "stick and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." But oh how false this expression is. Words do hurt, and any human being can tell you they do. Now, throughout my years of schooling I faced the "mean girl," the "bully," or the rumors, but what about when I was the mean girl? When I was a bully? What about when I gave into the rumors, and even spread them? I am guilty of, at times, using my words to hurt others. Now, I regret my words and actions, and I've asked for forgiveness from God, and I can only pray that those people I've hurt have forgiven me, as I've forgiven those that hurt me.

So, in this episode, the kid brings a gun to school mostly because no one ever talked to him. He eventually grew apart from his friends, and felt all alone in the world: a different kind of heart break. Even though I faced mean people, I was, and still am, fortunate to have a family that I can be honest with. Now, in this TV show, this student lied to his mom and told her it was OK. I'm not a parent, so I cannot speak for this woman, but I pray, I pray that my niece and nephews, and eventually my children, will never have to pretend like everything is OK. I pray that as an aunt, and as a parent, that I can know these children well enough to know when they're happy. The student in the TV show also said that no one, not even a teacher, would utter a word to him at school for weeks at a time. So, of course this got me thinking about being an educator...

I have now set a new goal for myself: to say hello, or even smile, at each and every student I can. I had a teacher in high school named Coach Bettis, he taught AP US History, and every Friday was "handshake Friday", and as we left the room, we were to shake his hand and he told us to have a good weekend. Looking at this from the perspective of a future teacher, I think this was awesome. Each student in his class got to know that they were worthy of a handshake. And I think that for someone who felt left out, knowing that a teacher spoke to you and thought you were important, even just for a moment, is a good thing. As a future educator, I hope that my students never feel like I don't care, because I will. I hope to have my own "handshake Friday," or something of the sort. I still believe that although it may not seem like one person can change the world, they can change someone's world, and as a teacher, I hope to be an influence in someone's world. I hope to let them know that they are not alone, even though it seems like the world is against them. I pray I can accomplish these goals, to help those hurtful words come with a little less pain.

What a Difference a Week (and a half) Makes!

I am glad to say I am in a much better place than I was just a little over a week ago. My sister, Jackie, reminded me of the importance of enjoying the little things in life today, because those little things will not be the same in a day, a week, or a year. I will never get today back. This last week I've really been trying to get my anxiety levels back down, and I've been doing pretty well. This week I had two programs, two papers, a test, a speech to give, and starting my field experience. With a lot of prayer and planning ahead, I was able to not get stressed out. Today especially I was reminded of how to appreciate the little things. As I was walking back from getting lunch, a cardinal flew in front of me. As most of you know, my memories of my dad are very limited, but I can vividly remember watching the cardinals in the front yard. I remember my dad telling me that his favorite color was red, so I deemed that cardinals were his favorite bird because they are red. Each time we saw a cardinal, my dad told me to make a wish, so even now, almost 14 years later, I still make a wish every time I see one. Seeing the cardinal flooded my mind with those wonderful memories of my dad, and it was like he was reminding me that even though he isn't physically here, he's still here for me.

As I dive more and more into Education classes, it becomes more evident that it is a career path the Lord really wants me in. It was about a year ago that I changed my major from Psychology to English Education, and I'm so glad I switched majors. It was something I very prayerfully considered. I admit, it is very depressing to hear teachers today talk about how much they love their students, but hate the system. Schools are getting rid of the arts, which takes away a little "escape" for students from their purely academic classes. No Child Left Behind laws are forcing teachers to teach to standardized tests, making it difficult to differentiate in their classrooms, which is what they want teachers to do. To make it even more difficult to cater to students' needs is the fact that they are getting rid of honors classes, as well as AP classes. The thing that kills me is that those making these decisions are not people who were just in high school several years ago, they have long since graduated. Hearing stories makes me think that 90% of the time, I'm crazy for wanting to pursue a career in education.

Today I began my field experience at Classic City High School. It's an alternative school for students who have either dropped out, or are many credits behind for graduating. Their teacher-student ratio is 1:15. Wow! And what's interesting is that each of these students have their own lessons on a computer system. They still switch from class to class, but using the computer system allows each student to work at their own pace. Some are working on credits even from last semester. The teacher serves as more of a mentor and helps students when they need it. Now, I don't really know enough to judge how I feel about everything being on the computer. Stay tuned to get more information. But, I think the idea of these alternative schools is amazing. Also, I wish every school had the good fortune of only having 15 students to one teacher, but that's a dream world. However, even just for today I had the chance to break the stigma about "drop outs." These students were pushed out by the system, a system that has 33 students to one teacher and puts students from AP to remedial all in one classroom. These are the students that are labeled in a way that they "don't care or want to learn." But in fact, that isn't true for all of them. One of the students I encountered today is around my age and has 3 children. Yes, I know that those were choices made on her part, but she is still given the chance to get an education on her terms, amazing. These students are also encourage to get jobs, internships, etc. They're encouraged to attend college, and the school will help them in any way they can. All of the teachers know every student's name. I guess my meager hour and a half at the school this morning just left me wanting to know more about this system. I'd like to get some insight into how I could apply some of these aspects into my school one day. I know the Lord wants me to be a teacher, it's just a matter the decisions I'll make to get there.

Patience is a Virtue

So, as many of you know, patience is one of my shortcomings. I am NOT a patient person. Bobby gets so mad at me when we drive to the beach because I'm still a 5 year old asking "are we there yet?" I constantly ask my mom how much longer until dinner, and complain when it's longer than I want it to be.  I am not a procrastinator, so therefore I like things done in a timely manner. That way, everything goes according to schedule and according to plan. However, God has an incredible sense of humor.

God is teaching me to be patient, and the more I pray for patience, the more challenges he presents to test this quality. Honestly, I've been failing at it. I have a fear of not being busy, because when I'm busy, I don't think about how sad I can get, or how worried/anxious I am. Although I have been very busy lately with school work, SAO stuff, and being an RA, every once in a while there are some times where I'm alone in my room to my thoughts. I hate it. I get anxious thinking about how I am not being productive, and therefore worry about what needs to be done, which in turn makes me apathetic towards getting work done. It's a vicious cycle, and one that is not easily broken. I am at a point where I really wonder what I am going to do with my life. Honestly, I really don't want to grow up. I wish I could just fast forward 10 years and see my life and have a great realization of "Oh, that's why I'm going through all of this." I want to know who I'm going to be. I have a plan for my life, but I often forget about God's plan. He is making it evident lately that our plans do not match up. This comes into my life especially with the situation with Bobby. As we grow closer as a couple, it makes our time apart seem like eternity. I can't even get into typing about it because I'll start crying (pathetic to the utmost degree, I know). I also get stressed out about my future in the work force. Yes, I want to be a teacher, but in my ideal world, I just want to be a mom. I got to see how wonderful it was for Jackie and Courtney to be able to work from home, and I know in my heart that that is what I want. So, and this is bad, sometimes I think "why go through all of this if I just want to be a mom?" I know that's irresponsible and obviously I'm not having a baby any time soon, and obviously I'm going to finish school. But...I digress. God even likes to interrupt my plans for the day, by presenting me with challenges to test my anxiety. I'm trying very hard to be patient and see what God has in store for me, but it isn't working out too well. He is also teaching me to embrace silence, something that I do not do willingly. I am trying to trust in God's plan no matter how difficult it is. I'm mostly just stuck in this middle spot thinking, "now what?" I don't really know who I am or what I want for now. But every day I get up, and pray for patience, and that God's will be done-no matter how difficult that is.

"I remain confident in this- I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord." -Psalm 27: 13-14

Being Wrong

No one likes to be wrong. I HATE being wrong. I'm a perfectionist, I'm OCD, I have an anxiety disorder, I am rarely wrong. Due to the events in my life, I've convinced myself that if I stay 3 steps ahead of the rest of the world that everything will be ok. It worked for the majority of my life, until I became an RA.

When applying to be an RA, they tell you you'll be overworked and underpaid, they tell you you now live in a fish bowl, and they tell you it'll be hard because you work where you live. Heck, they even tell you to expect to be called in the middle of the night. They don't tell you that you'll be called a bitch, or mean, or rude every time you document an incident. They don't tell you that residents will get you out of the shower for a trivial issue. They don't tell you that you have to be empathetic towards little situations like someone's light bulb burnt out or they dropped a toothbrush on the floor. They don't tell you that for every step forward there will be 4 steps backward. They don't tell you that you'll constantly be corrected, and that you'll rarely ever be right. They don't tell you a lot of things.

As an RA you have to humanize and de-humanize yourself at the same time. You have to develop a thick skin while at the same time be so invested in your residents that you're up when they're up and you're down when they're down. You have to put every personal issue aside if a resident needs you. Residents expect you to be a robot, because they majority of your job happens behind the scenes. They tell me I make it "look so easy." Well, you should have seen me 15 minutes ago when I had an emotional breakdown in my room. When you live where you work, you're not allowed to have a bad day, you have to be "on" 24/7. If a resident sees that your face is puffy because you've just been crying and you say you don't want to talk about it, the entire hall knows that you've been crying within 5 minutes. They ask if you're ok, but if you said why you're really upset the entire hall would know that in another 5 minutes. They don't tell you any of this in the many hours of RA training.

Now, I am grateful for my job. I've made friends I know I will have for a lifetime. I really, truly care for my residents. I started praying for them when I found out I was an RA. I pray for them daily. I do want to listen to their problems and I do want to know about their days. There are good times, like last week when I sat in the hall with 5 residents for an hour just talking about our lives, or when a resident makes a great grade on a paper you helped them with. I know I'm supposed to be a servant to God, and I should not complain, but I'm human. I worked so hard to get this position and now I'm questioning all of it. But I know I'm where God wants me to be, and I was so sure of it in August, but right now I'm asking God "why?"

For now, I guess I'll just have to get used to being wrong.

Forgiveness

Yes, Jesus loves me. We all know the Sunday school song; it's really a child's first glimpse at forgiveness. This was one of the first songs Caroline sang...well it went a little like this, "YES! Jeshu ovvv me! YES! Jeshu ovv me!" Regardless of how she sang it, it makes my heart smile to think that at 18 months old she already knew that Jesus loves her.

A HUGE part of Jesus and God's love is His forgiveness. John 3:16 tells us that "for God so loved the world He gave His one and only son." He gave His one and only son to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus died so that we may be forgiven. Now, if man was made in the image of God, it means that we are capable of the qualities of God, it's just a matter of how we act on them (aka, mess ups=our sins). The Godly quality that I struggle with most is forgiveness. It's difficult for me to forgive others, but even more difficult for me to forgive myself. Now, forgiveness is something I've been working on for a long time. About a year ago, my brother-in-law, Andrew, my sister Jackie, and I had a conversation about forgiveness. Andrew told me I needed to leave every bitter feeling I had towards a person at the cross. God easily forgives us, so why is it so difficult to forgive? Now, and I'm not making this up, at the time we were having this conversation we were driving through the North Georgia Mountains on the way back from his brother's wedding, and Caroline was asleep in her car seat. At the moment we were discussing forgiveness, we drove past a giant cross on the side of the mountain that was all lit up in the night. It was so surreal that I asked if there was actually a cross there or if I was going crazy. The cross was so amazingly beautiful; it looked like it was just floating in the darkness. Background story: you all know Bobby and I had a little 5 month "hiatus," if you will. Well, in those first few months I had a lot of hatred and resentment built up against how we ended, and...maybe, a little bit towards him. Now he and I have talked about all of this which is why I'm comfortable enough to share it on here. So, I had a really hard time forgiving him. Seeing that cross in the night sky was the moment that I began my journey of forgiving him for breaking my heart. Granted, it took until January for me to "finish" forgiving him, but that moment was when it all started. This is the only example I can really think of for a time when I truly forgave someone. And, I think the time it took for me to forgive him had to do with how long it took for us to get back together. You can't start a relationship again if one person has all this built up anger and animosity towards the other.

I guess my main question is why, if I know that Jesus died for my sins, and that I am constantly forgiven for my sins, and I can forgive other people, why can I not forgive myself?
There are things I can think of all the way back in pre-school where I was nasty to someone, and I still feel bad for it. I still beat myself up about little things like that. I think about how rude I was in a moment of frustration with G, or how I snapped at my mom, or lost my patience with a resident. I constantly analyze each situation and dwell on what I did wrong. I asked God for forgiveness, and I was given it, so why can't I forgive myself? I guess...does anyone else have this problem? Any tips on how to make it easier?

Blessings and love.

Why I Want to be a Teacher

So I was in my Educational Psychology class today and we talked about poverty and how it affects children in schools. The question is...how does it NOT affect children in schools? We watched a segment from 60 Minutes about child poverty in the U.S. and frankly, I got tears in my eyes. The interviewer sat down with about 20 children from elementary school to middle school ages and asked them some questions. One of the questions was "What is it like to sleep while you're hungry?" One young boy said he couldn't sleep at night because he woke up every 5  minutes thinking about how hungry he was. Another little girl said it was embarrassing because her stomach would rumble and the kids in her class always asked her why. Now, if you're reading this, you know I'm extremely dramatic; I say I'm starving all the time. In truth, I'm not. The kids also said that it's hard to concentrate when they've had to skip dinner and breakfast.

The interviewer also asked if any of the kids had their electricity turned off at home. 18 of the 20 children raised their hands. 18 out of 20! Their parents had to choose between feeding their family, or having electricity. The students also said they did their homework by candlelight. One older boy, about 14, said he went out in the car and used the overhead light just so he could get his studying done. The tear-jerker came when one girl, about 12, started to cry and said that she felt like her parents' poverty was all her fault because they had to buy her food and clothes.

It was this last statement from the girl that gave me this overwhelming feeling that I am supposed to enter the teaching profession. From reading by big sis's blog, I know that schools aren't what they used to be; parents don't care, students don't care, and teachers are teaching according to a bar set not according to their students' individual needs. This I know; however, I know God wants me to teach. I want to show the students the power of love and warmth. I will love those high schoolers (even thought it might almost kill me sometimes) like they're my own. Yes, I stress about money, and yes, there were times things were tight, but I always knew there was a roof over my head. I always had electricity and I always knew where my next meal was coming from. To the children who don't know these things, school really doesn't seem like that big of a deal. At 16 it will just make more sense for them to drop out of high school and work so they can contribute to their family's wages. I know what I'm up against. I want to show these students that breaking the chain and going to college will in fact benefit them more than they'll ever know. I know it won't be easy, I know I'll want to quit, but I know this is what I'm supposed to do. I want to be there for those kids. I want to show them the beauty of literature and how you can escape into a world that isn't your own, even for just a few hours. I want to see these students (even though I won't know them for a while) succeed and get accepted into college. I want to show them the beauty of an education; that although it sometimes "sucks," it will pay off in the long run. I want to love them and cherish them. I want to succeed when they succeed, and fall when they fall.

I want to be a teacher.

Number Two

So last night a group of my SAO sisters and I went to the Passion Conference Tour 2012 at Athens Church. It was a much needed emotional night of worship and message. It's been a while since I've gone to a big worship event like that, and I really needed it. I'm struggling a lot with being lonely and with Bobby being so far away. OK, I know whoever reads this probably gets really bored...wah wah, I miss my boyfriend, I know, it could be so much worse, I know. Anyway, it was so amazing just to gather with a huge group of college-aged believers and worship our Lord. Within the first few songs, I immediately felt waves of relief and the presence of Jesus. As Louie Giglio gave his speech, I was really struck by one of the things he said; that we must find a number 2. He talked about falling in love-something I can relate to. But, Louie talked about how we must first fall in love with God, our number one, and then go in search of our number 2. Fortunately, at this time in my life, I've found my number 2 in Bobby. 

A relationship is hard. It's work, and there are good days and bad days. Add in a 1,000+ mile difference and it gets even harder. Bobby and I have been struggling a lot with missing each other, which is only to be expected. We saw each other this past weekend and it was wonderful. Just to be with my best friend again. He's changed so much in the 7 weeks we were apart, and I'm so proud of the Godly man he's becoming. The distance requires a lot of trust in the person you love, and trusting yourself. Because our relationship has been weighing heavily on my heart, it's something I prayed really hard about last night about Louie spoke. I prayed that God guide us in our craziness of staying together, and that it be His will. I was hit with a sense of peace, and that was so nice and refreshing. It's crazy to think that a year ago Bobby and I were broken up, and not speaking to each other. We've been through so much in the past year and a half, and I know we have a lot more to get through. But as Bobby and I were talking last night about how we sometimes ask ourselves "Why us," that we should be grateful. We should be grateful that God loves us enough to challenge our love for each other by distancing us. And by distancing us, we must turn to Him so that we may grow together. And how much of a blessing is that? A huge one. I know we have so much going against us, and that there are so many obstacles in my way, but I'm not afraid-sad, lonely, and missing him like crazy, yes. But I am not afraid. We'll be OK. We've trusted God with our relationship and there isn't much more we can do. 

I've found my number 2.