Gratitude for the Plans I Didn't Make

This year I was asked to be part of a writing team for my church's Women's Ministries blog. I get to contribute, along with some amazing women and writers, three different times this year, and I'm honored to have been asked. Here is my first post:

November is the month we are reminded to be thankful. At the top of this year’s November list is my thankfulness that God’s plans far exceed anything I could dream up for myself. In short, I’m thankful for God’s sovereignty.

When Jon and I first got married, we had plans. I was teaching and Jon was a bicycle mechanic. We weren’t going to have kids for at least five years. We were going to travel the world. Open to missions, we assumed God was going to call us to use our talents serving in another country.

In the middle of my first year as a full time classroom teacher, I received an e-mail from my sister-in-law, Danielle. She and her husband, Dave, were spending their first year in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Danielle was teaching at an international school, and Dave was along for the ride. They were living our dream.

Danielle’s e-mail informed me that her school was in need of a 5th grade teacher for the following year and that I should really think about applying for the job. Jon and I immediately assumed this was our calling. God was going to use my teaching credential to get us into another culture, and Jon was going minister to the local people by fixing their bikes and riding with them.

Jon and I knew we shouldn’t get too excited yet, and that we needed to pray. We prayed together, and separately, for weeks until deciding that the next step was to apply for the job. We asked God to let us know if we were making the right decision, and to open and close doors, as we began down this road, as He saw fit.

About a month went by, and I was contacted by the principal of the school. He had filled the position, but he would keep my resume and information for future school years. Ok, God, you made that one clear. We’re not going. We get to stay in our comfort zone, I will continue teaching, and Jon will continue to wrench on bikes. Here.

Two months later I received another email from the principal. He unexpectedly had an opening available and wondered if I’d be interested in teaching 2^nd grade at his school? Jon and I were confused. Hadn’t God already told us no?

We prayed even more. We went through the necessary steps to proceed down the same road we thought we’d been steered off. After a handful of Skype dates, countless e-mails, and more prayer, I was hired. By the swiftly approaching summer, we were scheduled to move to a foreign country, barely speaking the native language, separated from most of our family and friends, and teach in a brand new school. Preparing for all the changes was an emotional bungee jump.

Next came the logistics: collecting paperwork, notarizing documents, getting blood tests, buying plane tickets, selling most of our belongings, packing, and finding a place to live during the interim phase between an expired rental agreement and our departure date.

Summer came and we were ready. We had turned in our keys and stored the few belongings we had left in my parents’ attic. As a married-for-almost-two-years couple we were living in my old room, under my parents’ roof. Waiting.

Four weeks before our scheduled flight to Ecuador, Jon and I had just returned from a dear friend’s wedding in Mexico City. We had both gotten rather sick at the end of our weeklong trip, blaming it on too many carnitas tacos. But we’d been home for a week and I still didn’t feel good. In fact, I started throwing up. Somehow I knew in my heart what the “problem” was, and tested my theory. I was right, and I was pregnant.

To put it simply, my boss told me not to come. His wife was informed of our situation and she told him to tell us we didn’t want to have our baby in Guayaquil. The decision was never ours to make. So… we were both unemployed, living at my parents’ house with one car and hardly any stuff. And I was pregnant.

Sometimes I wonder if Jon and I weren’t listening to God’s direction five years ago. Were we so set on our desired traveling lifestyle that we missed the “no” God was trying to tell us? Were we praying for what we wanted, instead of what He wanted, and assuming He was leading the way?

But my hopeful idea has more depth than that. Is it possible that sometimes God is simply trying to see just how far we will go for Him? We say we surrender all, and we will follow Him anywhere. But will we? Even if it leads us right back to where we started?

How this experience has strengthened our marriage and faith is immeasurable. A short list of God’s provisions in the confusing weeks following our unexpected news includes: Jon getting his job back; me getting a new, more local teaching job; finding an affordable and reliable car; the perfect apartment opening up the same week we found out we were staying…

And a short list of the opportunities which would have been impossible had we moved to South America: me mentoring a HUB group of teenage girls at ABC through their four years of high school, creating eternal bonds and relationships; Jon opening his own bike shop and becoming a well known influence in San Luis Obispo; me becoming a mother and spiritual teacher to two little girls who I love more than life.

My in-laws are still living our dream. But it’s not my dream anymore.

Jeremiah 29:11 – “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Passions

30 Things My Kids Should Know About Me #8:

What are 5 passions you have?

In a way, some of these prompts overlap each other. Things that make me happy may be passions. My dream job may be a passion. What I spend my time and love on are obviously passions.

So I may describe some of these briefly since I've written about them previously.

#1: My marriage. Being a wife that my husband wants to come home to and spend his time with is something I'm willing to work hard to do. One of my priorities in life is to protect my marriage. There are many reason for this. To make living together bearable -- preferably fun. To do my part to contribute to the circle of love and respect that marriage requires. To know that I am always trying to do what I can to make our relationship strong, which in turn makes it less and less likely that it will break. To be an example to our girls what marriage should look like. I want them in no uncertain terms to know what is an unacceptable way to be treated, and how to treat their partner in an acceptable way. To prove that being married is fun, not a joke on a sitcom that is to be mocked or bitterly complained about at every opportunity. Most importantly, when I decided to marry Jon, I made a promise, and I won't break it. Jon is a passion of mine, so my relationship is a passion.

#2: Raising Kealani and Leila. I pour myself into my girls every single day. I fail miserably sometimes, but I am trying to be an example of love and forgiveness while attempting to teach them to become respectful and productive members of society (not entitled imps) every waking moment. I do my best to show them the grace of God through my own actions. I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained at the end of most days, yet I wake up excited to do it again each morning. If that doesn't constitute a passion, I don't know what does.

#3: Children and young people. Aside from my own daughters, I love other people's kids. From teaching preschool/elementary/middle/high school, tutoring, counseling high school girls through my church -- I get attached to kids. I want to see them become better people, learn from their mistakes, gain knowledge, and in some cases even become their friends. I can't help it, I just love them.

#4: My relationship with God. I don't pursue Him like I should all the time, but I've experienced enough highs, lows, and big decisions in my life to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He exists. That while He allows me to make my own decisions, He cares what those decisions are, and He's with me every step of the way. I couldn't be a mother without trusting Him with my daughters' lives. There's not enough room in one blog to list all the ways I've seen Him work in my own, and others' lives, so I won't try. But extending His love to others and hoping that they also see Him at work in their lives is a passion.

#5: Writing. I was always the student who loved the literature/history side of academics as opposed to math/science. I devour books and enjoy writing. I started this blog about two years ago because I felt that there was an untapped passion in my life that wasn't getting utilized. I felt unfulfilled, and it took me a while to figure out why. I don't need people to read what I write. I enjoy hearing what people think, especially if they are entertained, and I truly hope my girls take interest in what I have to say when they are older. But if no one ever read my writing, if my girls never care, I would still enjoy it. It's a creative outlet for me, and it makes me happy.

My Dream Job

30 Things My Kids Should Know About Me #7:

What is your dream job, and why?

Lucky for me, my dream job is exactly what I'm doing right now... but I never would have known it was my dream job until I got to do it. Motherhood is exhausting, thankless, terrifying, around-the-clock insanity, and it is the hardest thing I have ever done. But it is also the most rewarding, loving, and eternal job anyone could ever have.

That being said, my dream career (as in I-get-paid-for-what-I-went-to-school-for-and-am-actually-qualified-to-do-it) is being a school teacher. Again, lucky for me, I got a chance to do this in my lifetime. I went to college and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies from Westmont College in Santa Barbara. I then moved home and attended Chapman University to attain my teaching credential in elementary education.

I spent a total of almost three years substitute teaching -- in between classes, observations, and my own student teaching. Then I won a third grade position in King City. The following year I taught fifth grade at Atascadero's Fine Arts Academy until the end of January 2009 as I anxiously awaited the arrival of my first beauty, Kealani.

That's all the teaching I wound up doing. To be perfectly honest, it's all I believe I will ever do, at least as an official classroom teacher. I loved my job. Now that I have done both, I am convinced that being a teacher (of any kind) is the closest position anyone could have to being a parent. (I assume being an aunt could shimmy its way in between the two, but that is something I've yet to experience!) The time, love, encouragement, instruction, counsel, entertainment, frustration, and desire to see your student achieve his/her best comes only second to that student's actual parents' own. (And unfortunately, sometimes it's first.)

Teaching is not a job you can "leave at the office". My concerns, as well as pride over my students' accomplishments, followed me home each night. My grading and planning followed me home. My desire to give my students the best I could reached into my own pocketbook. When you are influencing other people's lives, especially young people's, it burns its way into your consciousness and never leaves. I still think about my first set of students and it's already been five years since I taught their class. I wonder what they're doing now that they are in eighth grade. I hope that they have stayed away from their city's gangs, and have managed not to become too friendly with the opposite sex.

I loved teaching because I was good at it. I'm not bragging, I just firmly believe that there are specific things we are created to do. While there are countless jobs I would be horrible at, I was created to teach, and I felt comfortable and successful in it. I commanded a room full of 20-33 students at a time, kept their attention, got them to do what I asked, instilled knowledge in their tiny brains, and loved every minute of it. There are aspects of teaching that take away from the students. I hated these, as every teacher does. These aspects are only growing worse, which is why I don't for a second wish I was back in the classroom as opposed to being at home with my precious 4 and 1 year olds.

Sometimes I wonder why I went through all the school and training I did only to end up being a classroom teacher for 1 1/2 years. I don't regret it, I just wonder what it was for. I hope and pray that it was for the influence I had in those classrooms of students' lives during the time I was their teacher. I hope and pray my experience dealing with kids of all ages helps me to be a better mom, and gives me compassion for my girls' teachers when they begin school.

I'm a mom. I'm still a teacher. I get to do both of my dream jobs every single day, and I am immensely thankful for that.