In 25 days my first year of teaching will be over. As it is the custom to look back at the beginning when facing the end I begin to remember the circumstances of what brought me here: driving through the neighborhood with a scrap of paper, scribbled directions on an invoice for an oil change, which I clutched in my right hand as I scanned the scenery. I passed the airport and remembered landing there just a few months ago as I returned from Korea. 7 long months followed by 3 excruciating hours in an airport terminal waiting for my flight. Driving on, the houses began to grow in size and beauty. A private golf course, a large plot of open, plush-green field, and then the school grounds began. They started with a baseball field sprawled out across the country terrain and as I drove on I was amazed at the length of time before seeing the main building. How large is this place? I parked in what seemed like a lot for an amusement park and entered the foyer. The room was decorated with lengthy glass panes that looked out onto the entrance and showed an impressive quad of the same lush grass I had seen on my drive just minutes before. So many doors were around me but my mind couldn't focus on what I needed to do. I don't know how I ended up in the interview but I remember feeling as if my breath was gone. Surely with such an impressive building, those who work here must be held to an even higher standard.
I look out on the building now that has become somewhat of a home to me. It might be simply that I spend a majority of my time within its walls, or that I have clung on to my calling as my very life, that I am flooded with sadness at the thought of walking away from it. My prayers began the very day I was offered the job and continued until the afternoon I was told that the position had been closed; "Lord, where is my home?" I hadn't felt it when I walked into my apartment with its first box, or when I entered my small classroom with its first accessory. I had not felt it when I returned from Korea, or when I took on my very first graduate course. I look for my heavenly home but this is not what I'm speaking of. My foundation here. My joyous rest. That place to which I can enter and feel that my purpose lies.
I will be fluid. I will move again to another residence. There will be rough labor in getting the place established and put together. I'll go through the motions of decorating and stocking the essentials I need to thrive. Yet, I think in my heart (and hope to be wrong) that it will feel as empty and maleable as those other areas I've laid my head and entrusted my possessions these 6 long years. I can only hope that God knows what I am looking for, what I need, and that which will bring me ultimate peace while I do His will here on Earth. How He has blessed me and my time! What great things He has brought me from and through! Never would I believe that I would be standing HERE with all I HAVE, knowing it was from His hand. I don't deserve it- His love. Now I wait for it all. But I will continue serving and fulfilling my call while I pray.
I look out on the building now that has become somewhat of a home to me. It might be simply that I spend a majority of my time within its walls, or that I have clung on to my calling as my very life, that I am flooded with sadness at the thought of walking away from it. My prayers began the very day I was offered the job and continued until the afternoon I was told that the position had been closed; "Lord, where is my home?" I hadn't felt it when I walked into my apartment with its first box, or when I entered my small classroom with its first accessory. I had not felt it when I returned from Korea, or when I took on my very first graduate course. I look for my heavenly home but this is not what I'm speaking of. My foundation here. My joyous rest. That place to which I can enter and feel that my purpose lies.
I will be fluid. I will move again to another residence. There will be rough labor in getting the place established and put together. I'll go through the motions of decorating and stocking the essentials I need to thrive. Yet, I think in my heart (and hope to be wrong) that it will feel as empty and maleable as those other areas I've laid my head and entrusted my possessions these 6 long years. I can only hope that God knows what I am looking for, what I need, and that which will bring me ultimate peace while I do His will here on Earth. How He has blessed me and my time! What great things He has brought me from and through! Never would I believe that I would be standing HERE with all I HAVE, knowing it was from His hand. I don't deserve it- His love. Now I wait for it all. But I will continue serving and fulfilling my call while I pray.
