The world's greatest
I want to eat up Colossians. I can't get enough of it. I've been reading it day and night and I am just happily stuck in chapters 2 and 3 of it. I want it to fill up my heart and mind just like a good bowl of soup fills up a hungry belly.
Today, I kept thinking of the lines, "whatever you do..."
"And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Colossians 3:17
I'm in the middle of the much dreaded "IEP season" at school. Unfortunately it's smack in the middle of my favorite season of spring and instead of enjoying the outdoors and running around the fields of Clemson, I've been doing lots more paperwork and intermittently dreaming of summer. During IEP season, I rewrite each of my students Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs) complete with their present levels of performance and goals for next year and then we meet with all the therapists and each parents and go over them.
Last year was the first year I wrote all of my own goals for my students. I was starting fresh. I doing away with things from the previous teacher and dreaming of what my kids would be doing this year. Now, as I assess my students a year later, I see they haven't met all their goals and I've been harder on myself than I need to be. It often takes my students several years to reach some goals. But... in my ideal teacher world, all my students would reach them by the end of the year. And I replay all the things I could have done differently and things I could do next year. And on and on I go and then I realize I'm not breathing very well and I have a crick in my neck and shoulder and my stomach is in knots.
That tension has drove my to bike over to my friend house today after a long day at work. When I exercise it forces me to breathe heavily and then my tension goes away. It's this great phenomenon that God created in our bodies.
While I was biking (and trying to ignore the fact that my muscles used in biking are significantly underused), I was thoroughly enjoying the cool wind blowing through my hair, the vibrant green fields, the gentle horses eating grass, the giant blue sky with floating, fluffy white clouds. I got so excited on the one of the downhill glides that I starting shouting triumphantly like a 8 year old who has just learned to bike without training wheels and feels the freedom to flying down a hill for the first time. (That's what happens when you haven't used your bike in a year.)
I thought back to college when I used to bike to my education classes thinking that teaching would be great- easy- a piece of cake. Life would be easier to manage than college, right?
But I've found I don't have time to do it all. There's just SO MANY GREAT THINGS TO DO IN THIS LIFE!
Friday I went to visit the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. I mean, talk about being inspired to be the best teacher you can be. The passion and the drive and the talent they have is amazing and yet exhausting. How can you keep it up? How can you be the world's greatest teacher and the world's greatest mom? How can you be the world's greatest teacher and the world's greatest wife? When I heard the stories of the people who have worked there, several things stood out to me. Ron Clark is 38 and unmarried so this is his life and that works. Two others who shared their beautiful and inspiring story have experienced much heartache, depression, and divorce. I am NOT saying it is their fault at all... I don't even know these people, but it causes me to wonder- how do you do so many things well? Doesn't something have to suffer at the expense of another?
I love what I do and I love doing things well and the I want to keep doing those things well. I keep thinking, at least when it comes to teaching, that if I gave it up to be a mom or even to have another job/ position, I'd be wasting a talent and a passion, but as I felt the breeze in my hair today I whispered...
"whatever I do..."
It's not about what we're doing as much as how we're doing it. But don't we love to elevate certain people and positions? Is a teacher at my school just as significant as Ron Clark? Is our pastor just as significant as Billy Graham? Is a school nurse just as significant as a top notch surgeon? Is our mailman just as significant at Barak Obama? Is my stay at home mom as significant as Oprah Winfrey?
'"whatever you do..."
Whatever we do, I want to give myself fully. I want to not just aspire to greater things, places, statuses, but to greater character and likeness of Christ. Our Savior didn't speak from a great pulpit or hold an official government position or even a top notch job, but he spoke plainly and in love to common people and built furniture out of wood. His miracles happened on the dirty, dusty roads where messy people mingled.
"whatever we do..."
So my list of things in life that I want to do, my list of things that I want do to now- they don't even need to be whittled down right this second- they just need to be hung inside the frame of "whatever you do... do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Each minute I can commit what I do to Christ.
Because it's not really about being the world's greatest at any one thing, but knowing the world's greatest in exactly everything.
Today, I kept thinking of the lines, "whatever you do..."
"And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Colossians 3:17
I'm in the middle of the much dreaded "IEP season" at school. Unfortunately it's smack in the middle of my favorite season of spring and instead of enjoying the outdoors and running around the fields of Clemson, I've been doing lots more paperwork and intermittently dreaming of summer. During IEP season, I rewrite each of my students Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs) complete with their present levels of performance and goals for next year and then we meet with all the therapists and each parents and go over them.
Last year was the first year I wrote all of my own goals for my students. I was starting fresh. I doing away with things from the previous teacher and dreaming of what my kids would be doing this year. Now, as I assess my students a year later, I see they haven't met all their goals and I've been harder on myself than I need to be. It often takes my students several years to reach some goals. But... in my ideal teacher world, all my students would reach them by the end of the year. And I replay all the things I could have done differently and things I could do next year. And on and on I go and then I realize I'm not breathing very well and I have a crick in my neck and shoulder and my stomach is in knots.
That tension has drove my to bike over to my friend house today after a long day at work. When I exercise it forces me to breathe heavily and then my tension goes away. It's this great phenomenon that God created in our bodies.
While I was biking (and trying to ignore the fact that my muscles used in biking are significantly underused), I was thoroughly enjoying the cool wind blowing through my hair, the vibrant green fields, the gentle horses eating grass, the giant blue sky with floating, fluffy white clouds. I got so excited on the one of the downhill glides that I starting shouting triumphantly like a 8 year old who has just learned to bike without training wheels and feels the freedom to flying down a hill for the first time. (That's what happens when you haven't used your bike in a year.)
I thought back to college when I used to bike to my education classes thinking that teaching would be great- easy- a piece of cake. Life would be easier to manage than college, right?
But I've found I don't have time to do it all. There's just SO MANY GREAT THINGS TO DO IN THIS LIFE!
Friday I went to visit the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. I mean, talk about being inspired to be the best teacher you can be. The passion and the drive and the talent they have is amazing and yet exhausting. How can you keep it up? How can you be the world's greatest teacher and the world's greatest mom? How can you be the world's greatest teacher and the world's greatest wife? When I heard the stories of the people who have worked there, several things stood out to me. Ron Clark is 38 and unmarried so this is his life and that works. Two others who shared their beautiful and inspiring story have experienced much heartache, depression, and divorce. I am NOT saying it is their fault at all... I don't even know these people, but it causes me to wonder- how do you do so many things well? Doesn't something have to suffer at the expense of another?
I love what I do and I love doing things well and the I want to keep doing those things well. I keep thinking, at least when it comes to teaching, that if I gave it up to be a mom or even to have another job/ position, I'd be wasting a talent and a passion, but as I felt the breeze in my hair today I whispered...
"whatever I do..."
It's not about what we're doing as much as how we're doing it. But don't we love to elevate certain people and positions? Is a teacher at my school just as significant as Ron Clark? Is our pastor just as significant as Billy Graham? Is a school nurse just as significant as a top notch surgeon? Is our mailman just as significant at Barak Obama? Is my stay at home mom as significant as Oprah Winfrey?
'"whatever you do..."
Whatever we do, I want to give myself fully. I want to not just aspire to greater things, places, statuses, but to greater character and likeness of Christ. Our Savior didn't speak from a great pulpit or hold an official government position or even a top notch job, but he spoke plainly and in love to common people and built furniture out of wood. His miracles happened on the dirty, dusty roads where messy people mingled.
"whatever we do..."
So my list of things in life that I want to do, my list of things that I want do to now- they don't even need to be whittled down right this second- they just need to be hung inside the frame of "whatever you do... do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Each minute I can commit what I do to Christ.
Because it's not really about being the world's greatest at any one thing, but knowing the world's greatest in exactly everything.
Comments
Post a Comment