Put It on a Post-It

Yesterday my co-teacher, Jay, told me that before she walks into her most challenging class every day, she prays. Her most challenging class also happens to be my most challenging class - a pod of highly energetic and competitive 8 and 9 year olds who have been in English classes together since kindergarten. They don't like to be outdone or shoved out of the spotlight at all, and things can become rather heated if that occurs. I've had to make kids stay after class, make them write sentences, I've had to make them stand out in the hallway, pull them out into the hallway, send them to the principal, have their mother called, and so on. I hated that class. There have been days I've walked out of that classroom and thought, "Did I just spend the past 15 minutes arguing with an 8 year old.....and they won?" I thought for sure that before the end of the year either I was going to kill them or they were going to kill me. I would get so frustrated that everyday I would tell myself to ask my boss to switch classes with someone else; I should have been doing what Jay does. When she said that, I thought of my tendency to enter prayer as if its a job interview, not the same fashion I would text message a friend as she made her prayers sound. If I could pinpoint the greatest lesson I've learned while being over here, it would be to acknowledge God in every way - big and small, every time I have the chance, for its not so much to remind God that He is who He is or what He has done or anything like that, but to remind myself. There is a quote I read from C.S. Lewis once that states, "Prayer doesn't change God, it changes me," and I thought it had gotten it then, but I don't think I really have until now. Prayer doesn't do anything for God; He doesn't need me or my praise or my begging and pleading for anything He wants to take place. It doesn't make a difference to Him. And that's just it: I can say how happy I am, how angry I am, or how scared I am. I can say things like hallelujah, like hate, or like shit, and He sees me the same way through all of it. I'm reminded of a friend telling me awhile back to make sure and tell God when I'm angry, even if its with Him because God already knows, but maybe I don't know, and if there is anything God really wants, its for His children to feel as though they can go before Him and spread everything out on the table. Get rid of the shame or fear. He doesn't need us to, but wants us to, so that we can open up and have the chance to be settled. If I walk on egg shells around Him, which I am inclined to do, I will never fully grasp onto anything useful.......
Over the past year I have had moments of realizing how incredibly important my seemingly insignificant life is in God eyes, how He has made sure to provide big blessings, and heaps of small ones as well. And how something as small as an incredible view or a good laugh or a warm conversation can make all the difference in my day.

So my class and I have endured. Nearly a year later, we're still together. We're at a place where things can generally be solved peacefully; not always, but I've become mindful of their sensitivity, and they've become mindful of my authority........The same can be said of the worse class runner- up - they were out of hand when I got them in March and have slowly become more and more manageable, so that now I don't dread going in there everyday. I think a large part of that is due to Jay. Thankfully, I got paired with the best co-teacher in the school for both of these classes. Just another reminder....