Every once in awhile, I believe God allows things to happen to direct me to what I need to do/hear. Last night was one of those times. I was driving from a friend’s house to go home (actually, I was … Continue reading
The title may not be quite what you are thinking. I’m not even going to touch on the fact of the extra paperwork that comes with switching grades, the hours of preparing for something you would have otherwise not had to prepare so much for, and of course the task of learning a new curriculum. All of those make changing grades difficult, but that’s not what I’m focussing on today.
Today was our first day of school, and as you’ll read in my next post, I didn’t quite have the start to the year that I had planned. However, for all the preparations I did, today is what shook me up the most.
A little background for those who don’t know, I’ve essentially taught grade 6 for the past 5 years. That whole pre-teen mentality is what I’ve become accustomed to and primed to deal with. I loved it. But with an expanding school and a new principal, some changes were made, and I was asked to take on grade 2. I’ve been wondering if I would regret it ever since.
Everything went well. To be honest, it went way better than I thought it would. Surprisingly, the grade two students actually listen better than the grade sixes… go figure! But, when I walk into the hallways, and I see my previous students, I see the students that I had grown to know over the last year in anticipation of teaching them this year (before my assignment change), I can’t help but feel out of place. I feel like a skeleton of a person, just doing the job because I know how to do it, but not because I’m actually supposed to be there. It’s weird. Even my previous students stopped me and said they still didn’t picture me as a grade two teacher… because I’ve always been grade six to them! It’s just a strange feeling…
As I said, the day actually went very well. But there is so much to get used to. Grade two thinking is on a much more basic level than the complex conversations we would have in grade six. It takes them much longer to figure out problems and what I could consider simple tasks than the speed and accuracy my grade sixes could accomplish. I have never really had to teach reading before, nor spelling on such a basic level. I was a little shocked and blown away with the amount of help I needed to provide the students while creating an “About Me” booklet. It’s just so different from what I am used to.
I had a minute to talk to last year’s grade 2 teacher who is now teaching high school. She mentioned that after her first day in high school, she missed the grade 2 class. For her, the change was the opposite of mine. She missed the love and hugs you get from the younger children, and the kindness they speak to you in. Whereas high school students are very standoffish and can be rude in their talk. It’s completely different for her as well.
Are you a teacher that has switched grades? Do you know the “out of place” feeling I’m talking about? I’d love to hear your experience below and even suggestions on what you did to feel more “in place”. I’m sure time will help, but any extra advice is definitely appreciated!
So the weirdest thing happened to me this week, and it can only be explained that God was providing me with what i needed before I knew it, and it happened in the strangest way. Here’s what it was:
As far as the dynamics of the school, grades 5-8 are all downstairs. Because we are all together, we share in our options classes. Junior High had an outdoor adventure this week, and so it was simply grade 5 and my grade 6s in our area.
Options happen every Tuesday and Thursday and prior to this year, we have ALWAYS cancelled Options during the week that Junior High was gone. And that’s why this year was so strange.
The grade 5 teacher came to me on Monday saying that he knew I needed a break and was considering teaching a his Choir class so that he would have both grades 5 and 6 and I would have a spare. Normally this would not be a spare for me anyways because I teach the Junior High French at the same time. And as much as he seemed to stress that I needed a break, I could not figure out why!
Tuesday came, and he told me he had decided to teach Choir that day and went out of his way to tell me that he would keep them as long as he could so I could have a break and was just making sure that everything was ok and convenient for me. I was in total disarray trying to figure out what I did to require such a break!
I knew Choir class was almost an hour, and decided to use my time wisely: hence the government call that I have blogged about earlier.
The best part is, not only was Choir scheduled for just shy of an hour, but he kept the kids overtime!
Now picture this: just gone through the worst, most frustrating call I’ve ever had with the government over such a huge issue in my life, got treated incredibly rudely on the phone, was left so emotional afterwards, and yet had the spare time to regroup myself. eat some food and manage to level out before my students returned. Now tell me that isn’t God’s timing!
You see, I didn’t plan on that call. I definitely didn’t plan on that spare! Yet for some reason, somehow, God impressed upon my co-worker that I needed that particular time that particular day with the right amount of time to deal with something I needed to deal with. I had no idea. I had no idea why things were going the way they were, and yet it all made sense in the end. God had this planned and provided me with what I needed to do it.
I cannot sing God’s praises enough. The very fact that He sees everything – the beginning and the end – and knows everything in between just humbles me. My God has it all under control before I even realize it. My God provides everything I will need when the time comes. My God is more powerful than I could ever imagine. My God is truly the God of Love.
Patience. Often something we lack. I’m not talking about the kind of patience where you take deep breaths when you’re struggling with something or waiting for someone who is running late. I’m talking patience when you’re waiting for an answer to something and it never seems to come. That’s the patience I’m talking about.
This whole immigration thing with my husband frustrates me to no end. Now they’ve lost his FBI record that took us almost 3 months to get. I know they had it because I sent it in the same envelope as the Work Permit application. He got his work permit, meaning they got the FBI record. Yet they don’t have any record of it? I have a funny feeling I’m going to be waiting more than another 3 months…
But this whole situation really got me thinking. What if for right now, the work permit is enough? What about those nasty snow storms we had last winter, and yet we had a vehicle that sporadically ran. But wasn’t that enough to get us through all the days we desperately needed a car? It was a pain to have my basement flood and the endless disgust that came with the duties of pumping it all out, but wasn’t it contained just enough to not destroy many expensive things? I hate my washer and dryer. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the washer blows up one day. But isn’t it just enough that I have a washer and dryer that I didn’t have to pay for and that get the job done for now? My husband may not have his residency yet which does put some of our plans and decisions on hold. But isn’t it just enough that he does get to be here with me and can legally work? And maybe the time they told him to leave the country and then said he shouldn’t have left the country, and then got stopped at the border for two hours almost to not be let in the country, wasn’t that enough that they at least let him through the border with a visitor visa?
Funny enough, as coincidental as this is, I’m currently sitting in the car, my husband has just come out from looking at other vehicle options, and our car won’t start. And I’m not quite frankly sure how this is going to end. But the one thing I do know is that it is just enough that I have options.
It is just enough that we can ask someone to boost us and hopefully that will work. It is just enough that if necessary, I pay yearly for AMA coverage which includes a few tows if I need them. It is just enough that I even have a car that has gotten me around this long. It is just enough that although we couldn’t do it for long, we do have the money to pay for a taxi to go home. And it is just enough to know that we were already planning on another vehicle – although we were hoping for it to be a second vehicle – so that if need be, we can get another vehicle fast.
Praise God that He knows what we need and gives us JUST ENOUGH ❤
I’m not going to stay long because I do need to be with my husband at this frustrating moment. But I write to you so that you know, even if things don’t quite turn out the way you want or the way you expect, God will provide you with just enough to get through whatever it is, and just enough to keep you going.
Sometimes everything we think we need is so far from what we actually need, and that’s where trusting in God and being patient upon His answers can be so hard. But I challenge you today. Look at the things He’s given you that are just enough, and go from there.
So my husband and I have only been married for one year. But I can honestly tell you, that one year has presented some of the hardest and biggest challenges. When friends and family begin telling us things like, “I don’t know how you’re doing it!” and “What is it ever going to end?”, you can begin to see the sincerity of my statement. It has been quite the year.
To start off our married life, we had a gorgeous wedding. My mother put in an amazing amount of work as the wedding was where she lived, and nowhere near me. We basically communicated by Facebook and e-mails so that I could see pictures of what she was getting. But in the end, it was such a pretty place. In fact, we got married in a park. The river, trees, and a light breeze would compose of our background. And our reception? In a basketball court! Now, I played basketball for one season of my entire schooling-career. But did I want my reception to look like we were in a basketball court? Hardly! But what my mother did to that basketball court was amazing. In fact, here’s a picture of it:
Magical. I was so impressed. It was seriously amazing. And not to mention this is after the tent had been put up and then torn down by the wind. So although you can’t see it in the picture, there was a place on the front of the tent, thankfully on the outside, where duct tape was used to fix the “tear” from the wind storm. But all in all, we were blessed with the ceremony coming together on the day of our wedding!
Now I’d like to say that it was at least easy from the ceremony throughout the honeymoon. Don’t get me wrong, we definitely enjoyed our honeymoon, going from place to place as we wanted. But, I got a phone call the very next day from our pastor saying we were missing a very important piece of paper: the one that would be submitted to the government to prove that we were married. Oh boy! You see, by this time, we were away from our wedding people who had to sign it, some of them had already gone back home (way far away), and so begun the e-mailing and faxing of a piece of paper to get all of the signatures required. Submitted.
Along we went with our honeymoon, and yet, another phone call. The government will not accept that piece of paper as they want originals of the signatures. So let me just explain that by then, we were home, which means there were only two people, aside from us, in the province we were in, that had attended the wedding. That meant that if we missed these two people or somehow couldn’t travel to them, we were in serious trouble! Fortunately, God had prepared it so that we were able to get ahold of these two people, and they were able to sign. Finally, we were married “legally”.
Sound like quite the beginning to a marriage? It was. But that was just the beginning. At first, my husband was working 12 hours away from me with no promised schedule of when he’d be allowed to come back home, then he quit his job to be home with me, and had a terrible time because he’s from the states, and I’m from Canada, so he wasn’t allowed to work in Canada. So then came the MOUNTAINS of paperwork. Eventually it was finally finished for Canadian Permanent Residency, and to this day, they will tell me no more than “It’s processing”. So frustrating.
So not only was my husband depressed to not be able to work and provide for his family (me and the dogs and Dolce), we had a car accident (my fault). There went my second brand new car. Fortunately Greg had bought an old car that was AWD (those of you who live in Canadian winters know how important this can be!). We got that ready to go, and yes it worked for awhile, but then it too kept having problem after problem. Don’t get me wrong. At the same time that we’ve sunk endless amounts of money into that car, and it again is not running, God just knows what you’ll need. I made it through the whole winter between bus and that sometimes-working car. When the biggest storms hit (police telling people to stay off the roads, 150+ car pile-ups), that was when the car was running so my husband could come get me from work. I mean, I cannot begin to praise God enough for knowing exactly what we’ll need and when we’ll need it.
I had to rescue my sister once from a situation she had gotten into. And I already hated to drive in this car because it felt so funny to me, so shakey. And we didn’t have the money at the time to get it looked at. But when my sister needed me, I told my husband we had to go. We drove so far in that car and got back home. Eventually my husband did take it in, and the mechanic looked at him in shock. He was able to move the tire a full 3 inches in and out, effortlessly. He said it was incredibly amazing for the amount of driving that we did that the tired did not just fall off on the road somewhere. Seriously, praise God! I don’t know how we survived anything without Him, and it was truly all Him.
So aside from car problems that made travelling slightly difficult throughout the year, I have never become more thankful for bussing systems. Don’t get me wrong, it takes me 3 times as long to get anywhere, and standing at a bus stop in pouring rain or freezing, windy temperatures is no fun either, but where would I be without the bussing system today? Another source of blessing in a very difficult time.
We were not able to travel for Christmas, and although we had the tiniest little Christmas tree, we at least had a tree. And our wonderful family sent us their gifts by mail and by plane through my father. Family support is amazing.
During the year, to top off my husbands depression, he had three surgeries completed. Talk about shock. One thing I’ve come to learn that in the states, surgeries, hospital procedures, and even regular doctor visits cost a pretty penny. So explain to me, how even though none of them were pleasant, but that he had them all happen in the same time that I was able to cover him under my medical coverage through a buy-in program for non-working spouses? I mean, it is incredible! What God sees, let no man question. He saved us probably from going bankrupt so easily. And then my husband needed some serious dental work when one of his teeth lost a filling and broke a piece off. All of that saved so much money because he was with me and my medical coverage covered him. You never know what God has planned, but He has it all in His hands, and that’s the incredible thing!
Essentially, all year I was living from paycheque to paycheque. I live in a big city, so rent is crazy. And of course both of us had to live off my paycheque. There were some months, we had to seriously just stick to those foods that forever linger in your cupboards, like pasta noodles and rice. It was hard and there was never any “extra”. But we did it, we definitely did it. We’re still here, and we’re all fine.
I have so much to thank God for, and the very fact that Greg and I are still here, and still in love, is incredible. It has just been one thing after another, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen in this next year because even now, he still doesn’t have his paperwork and I’m not sure he’ll even be allowed to return with me. So it’s going to be a year of who-knows-what. But one thing I am certain is that God will provide the same way He has, and it’s up to Greg and I to do what we can as well. We’ve had such a rocky path, and I’m hoping by the end that we’ll just be an unbreakable pair, ready to take whatever the world throws at us, and more in love and stronger than we ever were.
So when we were able to celebrate our first anniversary, we celebrated. We went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, found a deal online for an amazing hotel, and ate at amazing places, including Luminaria where an award-winning chef, Andrea Clover, who also won the latest season to Sugar Dome, worked and provided our incredibly delicious desserts. I am thankful for this one year of craziness, and I am ever so thankful for my husband who has been with me through it all. Incase he ever reads this: I love you!
Calm in Christ and Fitness 