Light

     Our house is dark. It feels like whatever light is in the room slinks back into the walls and never gives light to the rest of the room. We have several night lights around the house and yet, many times, it is still so dark I can't see my hand in front of my face. 

     That's how my Christianity shines a lot of days. I have a light inside me. It is supposed to shine for the world to see Christ in me. But, I cover it up with my actions. A snippy word here, a bit of sarcastic attitude there, a general complaining demeanor everywhere. 

     My thinking in the morning is that I WILL represent Christ well today. Then life happens and it is so easy to let small incidents make Christ not shine in my life. 

      How will I represent today? 

Past vs. Future

     I learned something about myself yesterday that both surprised and saddened me. Two of my friends shared with me how pleased they are with my demeanor these days. Apparently, I used to be very critical, snippy, intimidating and I guess generally not nice. They like the me I am now. At first I thought it must be the tiny little pill I take every morning to make the synapses in my brain connect more efficiently. (anti-anxiety). Then this morning while reading my devotional about  when God called him to go back to Egypt to talk to Pharaoh, I realized it is not the effect of those tiny pills. It is that point a few years back that all of the rhetoric of Christianity began to be real in my life. God saved me when I was eight. I went through the motions of Christianity for most of my life. I went to church, taught Sunday School, led bible studies, and have listened to thousands of messages from Godly men. What I realized is that until a few years ago, that's what I did, go through the motions. God made this change in me. Not medicine, not friends, not my husband, GOD made me different. 

Change

      I'm not a fan of change. When I was 15 years old my mother bought a microwave. They were relatively new things at the time. For several months I refused to use the microwave. I preferred the oven. It had been just fine for us for my whole life. I still prefer the oven. Though I will use the microwave if the job warrants it! 

       Teachers are very familiar with change. Every year things change. Often, things change mid-year. Teachers retire, change schools, move grades, and some even change careers. Every year I think ahead to what it might be like next year with that teacher gone or that other teacher in a different grade. 

       It's easy to begin to worry about next year. What if the new teacher is not so good? What if they are not a team player? What if a teacher was a fantastic 5th grade teacher and they are awful at teaching 3rd grade? 

        Or, I could think of it as an opportunity to start fresh. To meet a new friend. I could think of it as God putting someone new in my world for me to share Christ. It's kind of a glass half full thing. 

        How do I choose to face the new, different, and unwanted change? 

When the Unthinkable Happens

           The thing that your mind refuses to imagine ever happening to you. Or, worse, your mind imagines it ALL the time! What do you do when it actually happens? Do you freak? Scream? Cry? All of the above?

           That thing happened to a friend of mine yesterday. She went to do some chores at her mom's house and found her mother, gone from earth. 

           It's one of those things that we  fear and at the same time don't want to imagine. If you live with an elderly parent or live close, this might be your biggest fear. It is mine. When my mom comes to visit, I am constantly imagining I'll find her gone when I get home from work or in the morning when I go to wake her.

            God tells us not to fear. When I take myself down from the edge and really think about God's promises, I realize that if she were to go when she is with me, she was with people who loved her. (She lives in a nursing home.) So it is the perfect place for her to meet God. 

              

              It's then that I realize the fear is not for her, it's about me. About how I am going to feel when I find her gone. How that event will change me. I'm afraid I won't represent Christ with my actions and feelings. 

Overwhelmed. Too much. So little time. So tired. Scared. 

These are the thoughts that plague me these days. I think these thoughts plague me every April/May since I have become a librarian. A librarian wears so many hats.
 Add the other jobs within my title and it gets even crazier. Technology teacher. Building Technology Coordinator. 

Timeline of April

First: List all of the tasks associated with this time of year. 
Second: Feel even more overwhelmed than before I realized EXACTLY how many tasks there were for me to accomplish before the end of the year. 
Third: Run around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to work at the tasks simultaneously hoping that progress on several tasks will make it seem better. (Note: It doesn't.) 
Fourth: Shut down. Go into full out denial. Cry. Pout. Get angry.
Fifth: Realize I can't do it on my own and let God be my guide. 
Sixth: Breathe. Relax. Let Go.

You'd think after so many years, that I would realize and skip to 5. But, NO, I go through Every. Single. Step. I suddenly feel an affinity with the Israelites who wandered through the desert for 40 years.