Substitute Teaching

I'm sure how coherent this will be.  I have many thoughts rolling around in my head on this Saturday night.  I'm sure they're related somehow, but I'm not sure I know or can articulate the connections.  As I stare into the face of a new school year, one in which is looks like I will be substitute teaching again, I know I need to make some changes from last year.  The last school year was miserable.  I didn't deal well with the unknown and the anxiety that accompanied it.  It was a long, dark winter of the soul, one that lasted well into June.  Then, I went to camp for the summer, a place where God shows up and lives are changed.  I was reminded that there is a big world outside of worrying about money and trying to find a job.  There is more to life; there has to be.

This year will be different.  I had hoped to find a full-time teaching position, but it doesn't look like that will be happening.  God has apparently called me to be a substitute.  I don't know the reasons why, but God never promised to give us all the answers.  I may not like it, but God never said that we have to like everything He gives us.  He does call us to obey, however.  And obeying is walking through the one and only door that He has opened: substitute teaching.  So that is what I'm going to do.  And I'm going to do it with optimism.  I won't let the anxiety get to me like I did last year.

I did a Bible study by Beth Moore last year that included this quote: "God cannot make a decision for my life outside His lavish love for me."  Substitute teaching is not just what happened because God couldn't make anything else work.  Substitute teaching is God's first choice for me.  And anything He gives me is borne out of His great love for me.  I don't understand that love, and I certainly don't deserve it, but I am eternally grateful for it.

Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."  God knows the cries and desires of my heart.  He knows, even when I don't have the words.  Especially when I don't have the words.  As I focus this year on delighting myself in God and being faithful in obeying what He has placed in my life, I have to trust the He knows and hears the desires of my heart and will be faithful in fulfilling them.