Embracing Your Season.

This Sunday I heard a sermon I have heard a hundred times. It started out with that phrase we all like to quote to make us feel better when life throws us curveballs; 

"For everything there is a season..." 

{Ecclesiastes. 3:1-9} 

Other than some fluffy reassurance, I'd never made any real connection to this message. Yes, there are 'seasons of life.' Don't I know it. Seasons that hurt, seasons that are exciting, seasons that are trying. Seasons, just like the ones I know so well from living in New England for so long, that change every so often. But nevertheless, they shift and change. There is one and then inevitably after, there is another. But on Sunday, I learned this message in a different way than that fluff reassurance I'd heard before. 

The speaker of this message urged us to embrace our season. Whether it is frustrating, trying, terrifying, exciting, or none of those things; it is the season you are in. Repelling it, no matter how difficult it might be, is not how to go into and live in your season of life in a healthy way at all. 

I wanted to share the notes {and some commentary} that I took for this in hopes it can be useful in some way to someone else.

1. Acknowledge seasons.  

Ask yourself, what are the features of my life right now? What am I learning? What am I going through? What is God been trying to teach me? You have to first identify your season to be able to do the work that it and God requires of you.

2. Know yourself. 

James 1:23-25 - This is one of my favorite verses because it is so applicable in so many situations. It's almost like God includes this verse in the Bible as a "duh-verse." It's hard to read it and not feel a little silly. We need to know ourselves so that we can find out what we need to learn. This is so that we may improve on that self-discipline area of life we all know and {hate to} love. Do you have a healthy view of yourself, of what you actually need to learn. Are you receptive to what God can and will show you?
This requires balance and humility.

So that ultimately, we can move on to maturity.

3. Find your season. 

Proverbs 4:23 - Check your heart. Look at your present. Look at your daily life. What has God or others been speaking into your life? Do you notice something continuously coming up in your life that you keep pushing to the side? What are you in the middle of now? What are changes happening in your life? What do you need more of? What are you procrastinating?

4. Get the right equipment. 

Scripture. People (community!) Time - assign a time and place to do this thing, to think about and learn about your season, to use the skills you're learning about yourself to develop in your season of living. Skill development - give yourself time to develop learning and skills. Nothing happens overnight. That is certainly why seasons last for days, months, maybe even years, not minutes or hours.

I definitely feel that this message couldn't have come at a better time as we somewhat ceremoniously step into a new season, the New Year. I know that I look at years as general seasons of life containing so many different seasons of life. I think about who I was and what I was learning about this time a year ago and how many different 'seasons of living' I have gone through in the past 365 days. It's significant really. Significant in my spiritual growth, my personal growth, my physical and emotional growth and just my daily learning. 

No matter what season of life we are in, there is growth. It's interesting and eye-opening to consciously identify and keep mine in mind. 

I think I can identify a few phrases of Ecclesiastes to be true in my own life that I hope to grow in. 

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven; 

There is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

 a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot,

     a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

    a time to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

   a time to search and a time to give up,

    a time to keep and a time to throw away,

    a time to tear and a time to mend,

    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

   a time to love and a time to hate,

    a time for war and a time for peace."

I could not identify more with the phrases, "a time to plant and a time to uproot" and "a time to weep and a time to laugh."

These will be the guides of my next five months and my coming season of life.

What are yours? 

What I've been up to.

December is seemingly flying by. But this is what I've been up to.

I had to say goodbye to my littles on Wednesday;
My heart absolutely shattered when they gave me notes and hugs and letters. Who wouldn't feel awesome when a bunch of nine year olds told you how "pretty" and "smart" and "helpful" and "awesome" you are..I mean, come on. The best part is how they said what a great teacher I'm going to be and begged me to stay with them and teach them. Let's just say, it was a nice affirmation of all my hard work towards my future career. No matter how much I have to study for my certification tests or how hard I work towards graduating with my degree.

Upon leaving, I was showered with books as gifts from each one of them, even a note from a parent telling me how much fun their child had learning while I was in the classroom. My teacher heart felt amazing when I heard struggling students tell me how I'd helped them. I even received a generous gift from the other team of teachers and aides. 

It was hard not to cry on my last day. And I was practically a puddle as the students were reading out loud to me what they wrote in their cards. One of them shouted in the middle of readings, "you're crying!" I teacher-glared at them jokingly and quickly answered, "No I'm not!" (Maybe I was tearing up a tiny tiny bit....)

Christmas is coming. It is unbelievable that it is the 20th. 

In other news,

I am home. 

Two cups of coffee and five hours later, yesterday. 

Home in a very complex way. 

But home, no less. 

Christmas 2010...the wonderful unsuccessful surprise.

Oh, and soon I get to say hello to this fellow again. 

My heart is so very excited. 

Looking ahead...

I am baffled and exhilarated(?) that this wedding of mine (ours) is nearly five months away!?!? Which means I guess it's time to start planning it again, right? I can't believe it's been four years since I met this guy. Time sure does fly. 

Normally I have goals in the New Year, not resolutions per say. Goals for the New Year and fresh start and thanksgiving for the past year. But I'm not sure I can have many with this so constantly changing and about to change. I think I'll stick with the theme of 'grow where I'm planted.' I guess due to the fact that my soil will change this year a couple of times. Other than that, I'd be lying if I didn't mention my health goals and all that I feel like I've already achieved. Even on days where I'm extra hard on myself or don't work out, I realize it's okay. It's cliche to say that it's a lifestyle change but it truly is. And I really do feel so much better when I'm "on track." Whatever that means. So no, I'm not one of those crazy brides who works out to lose such and such amount of weight before the wedding. I'm pretty happy with the path that I'm on. My goal is to stay on it and tweak it and find ways to improve it, and me. 

My other goals would be to help along my growth. Take care of the plant. Water it, nourish it. Emotionally speaking. 

I want to stay on the right track physically but also spiritually and emotionally. I have the independent time to learn how to be a wife and how to grow as one. So I'm really looking forward to that as well. Also how to grow in a place I'm not used to, amongst changes I cannot control. That one will be tricky, I know. 

But I know it is possible. 

Autopilot.

I haven't felt particularly inspired to write much lately...kind of running on autopilot. I'm mostly done with my semester and finishing up student teaching. And by done with a semester, I mean the time has both flown and seemed to drag tirelessly. I'm certainly not emotionally prepared to say goodbye to my room full of students who have taught me more than I ever imagined. I'm not ready to leave them and not see how they finish off the year, how they grow more, what else they learn and do and see. I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for the holidays yet (I definitely have not finished buying gifts). I'm not truly ready to be surrounded by a room full of people all asking loaded future questions followed by subtle hints of guilt of always returning to that place, wondering, questioning, answering, persuading, pursuing.

I'm not sure I'm ready for a new year, changes, goodbyes. 

But I am ready to dwell in the present. And while I know I've been hypocritically chanting that a while now until I believe it, I'm ready to believe it. 2014 will be the year I both finish up a chapter and start a new one. And while I'm not sure I'm ready to do either one of those things, they will inevitably happen. I'm ready to start thinking about searching for my own students, or a job in my field once I move. I'm ready to start researching what that will look like and when. I'm ready to plan this wedding and not get so caught up in the details but at the same time acknowledge that details are what makes things personal and special and us. I'm ready for the holidays and home and family and lasts.

I'm ready for a fresh starts, changes, hellos.

As I wrap up things here in PA, I know that I have wonderful people waiting to welcome me back home in CT. And as I get settled back home in CT, I know that in eight days I'll soon be welcoming back someone very wonderful home to me in our little airport as he steps off the plane. I'm ready for this new year and these last selfish months. Not as the world sees them, not my "last days of singlehood, live it up" kind of way. In a learning way. In my sort of cram session to take everything I have learned about myself and put it into a partnership everyday. To take everything I've learned separately and morph those lessons into a two people, one roof sealed legal, binding and team playing kind of deal. I guess I can't really learn everything in these next near five months (obviously) but I can spend it growing, as always. I hope to.

I've learned a lot this portion of this year. And even though the year is about to close, it doesn't mean that it has to stop.

But for now, I could use a good recharge to my autopilot state.
My heart could use a warm reunion.
My soul could use a good worshiping.
My body could use days of rest and relaxation.
My head could use some comforting words.
My fingers could use another's being laced in mine.
My lungs could use a deep and true laugh.
My ears could use a good listen to family and little's giggling.
My eyes could use warm nights and christmas tree lights, and reassurance that though things change, and people change and move and grow,

this is all okay. It will all be okay. Somehow.

Thankful & Blessed.

As November suddenly draws to a close, 

I cannot help but to think of how many ways I am thankful and blessed.

I am blessed that six months from today I will be marrying my love, 

my friend, and my biggest encourager. 

Credit to Nick Benson Photography

There is no denying that these past near four years have been incredibly difficult. Just thinking through all the distance, all the goodbyes, all the rough patches, misunderstandings, terribly lonely days and nights makes my heart hurt. Date nights will ceaselessly be my favorite. I cannot wait for a time when they are not through a computer screen or phone. His voice for two hours and ten minutes is better than nearly anything. Seeing his nose crinkle is my favorite picture, even if it is on a screen. 

I cannot believe how quickly these near four years have been and how slow they’ve dragged on at the same time. I am amazed at the memory of opening a large cardboard box on my eighteenth birthday with a dozen ring pops inside. Not even six months in and we knew. We knew our countdown had started. We knew to just wait three years. And so we counted down. Our months together and apart have been filled with countdowns and airports. Exactly six months from now, this chapter will close and we will be on to the next as husband and wife. I will live with him and wake up the very first permanent morning and know that we did it. We won. That this time it's for real. For more than a couple of weeks. For more than a few days or a long weekend. 

I cannot even begin to imagine what that will look like, what our life will change and spin into. But my goodness, I can sure daydream. I cannot believe that our life together, our next chapter, is only a blink away.

I am thankful for experiencing daily life with twenty-four little stories. 

I am so sad realizing that I will have to say goodbye to my students soon. I am fearful. What did they learn from me? What did I teach them? I mean really teach them. Not just content, but did I impact their lives? Will they remember me? It is so bittersweet to be leaving a piece of my heart in room 214. It is so exciting to know how much they taught me, to know how everything I learned and experienced in that room has shaped me into the teacher that I am now. The thought of them and their little hearts and brains excites me for my someday-classroom. Where, yes, I will still have to leave them. But it will be different. It's so painful and joyful to know that you've invested so much temporary raw emotion and energy and experience into a room full of exhausting, loving, amazing kiddos. 

And in the end, I'm sure grateful that they have taught me more than I ever expected. 

They taught me patience and cautiousness, security and boldness, timidity when necessary and how to be a friend. They taught me that not every student that comes into my classroom will be blessed the same way I have been growing up and that with each step into my classroom, their little faces will carry countless stories, backgrounds, memories, emotions and lives. 

And that it is my job, to take everything they bring to me, everything they come to be knowing and being and to teach them. However that looks for each of their little unique faces and hearts and minds. 

I am thankful for home. 

Every time I think I have this concept, this idea of home figured out I'm thrown for a loop. I wish I could explain everything going on in my heart and in my head over this. Regardless of the confusion, I am thankful for family, for chasing little feet around the house. For the way that dog radiates heat under the covers in the morning or knowing which boards creak outside my bedroom door. I am thankful for the physical roof over my head and all the lessons learnt inside of it with the family of people stampeding in and out of it; biological or otherwise. 

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”— Azar Nafisi

Despite how I'm feeling, despite reminiscing in the past or wanting to hurry towards the future, I am truly and deeply thankful and blessed this holiday season and on. 

It takes a village.

Tonight I was sitting in bed, (at 8pm on a Friday night...cheers to a full day of field-trip-fun with some amazing third graders). I finally settled an exhausted body, but a busy mind and stirring heart refused to follow suit.

I've been thinking recently about all the things I do not just in life in general, but more specifically in my teaching. Things that I have gleaned from other people. Chants and sayings I remember my own first and third grade teachers using to call us back to attention, that I now use daily in 'my' classroom. That I think of them each time I do it. Memories. Arguments turned meaningful lessons and times of forgiveness and acceptance I now hold so closely to my heart. To my growth. Daily routines I took for granted. Ways of saying things, doing things, living life, sharing. Lessons I've learned the hard way. I have noticeably began to sift these into everyday conversations with my littles, molded into words and ways their little minds can hopefully comprehend. Maybe not today, but in hopes it will stay there. Just as I have tucked away some of the same faded memories and lessons.

Be respectful. 

Stealing is not something we do. 

Listen to others. 

Those are hurtful words. 

No one likes when you repeatedly poke their shoulder to get their attention. 

Tantrums will get you no where quickly and everywhere with long talks and exhausted, but patient teachers. 

What do you think honestly means? 

Stop taking things for granted. 

I care about you. 

I care for you. 

You get what you get and you don't get upset. 

The world doesn't like liars, 

no matter how much it tends to accept them through shady alleys and dirty back doors. 

The reason you have a consequence for that action is because I care, no matter how difficult that is for your mind and heart to comprehend today. You'll get it some day.

Your scribbles and colors are pieces of art and that scratch-paper note you slipped onto my desk when no one was looking is worth more than the world's finest diamonds to me. 

Fair is not necessarily equal.

I believe you. 

I believe you until you break my trust, then we will work from there.

I believe in you. 

I am proud of you, of your work, of all your accomplishments big and small. 

At the ripe age of twenty-two I am suddenly jolted by how much of my routine, teaching and daily life in general has been impacted and soaked up from other memorable characters is whatever journey this is turning out to be. Lessons disguised as challenges, fears, stubborn refusals. Naive arguments with someone who holds my best interest but from which I simply and plainly saw a bright and bold "no" fifteen years ago, five years ago, two months ago, or two days ago.

There's a beloved expression I've heard tossed around about child-rearing, one that can equally parallel teaching. 

"It takes a village."

I have never been more sure that you are not just impacted by one person, but by the village and magnitude of people and stories and lessons that follow you around for life. And in turn, every single action that I do in the eyes of my students is part of the village-size impact they will take away from this stage of their lives, 

from me.

Every single day I see the amount of people that come in contact with my students in the near eight hours they are in school, myself included. Then, I think about all the other people they come in contact with. People I do not see. Lessons or punishments behind closed doors. Neglected words, painful words, positive words. Empty rooms, picture-perfect family dinners. People beyond my control. People I don't know. People I won't ever even meet. Parents, grandparents, friends, friends' parents, cashiers, neighbors, family members they only see on the weekend, siblings, step-parents, strangers. 

And suddenly,

I am aware that I cannot control the lessons they learn from those people; 

neither good nor bad. 

I am aware that that thought breaks my heart. Knowing that the little hearts that I have come to care so much about, are impacted either good, bad, or impartially to people and memories that slide across their little paths every single day. But more so, knowing the impact I have, the piece of the village I am. The portion that I do get to make an impact on. What a responsibility. What a wonderful, daunting, powerful, challenging, and terrifying task I have set out for me. Even if it is just a part of the puzzle, even if I am just a single citizen amongst a village of lessons and challenges. 

Good and bad. 

"I am so blessed to be a member of that village, their village." 

Because at twenty-two, 

I'm finally recognizing the village that trails behind me every single day. 

The village of people I carry with me as I step into that classroom each day.

And I am blessed.

Restless.

Lately, things have been increasingly difficult.

I am continuously ready to move on to life together with my husband. As tongue-in-cheek as it feels to admit, it is making it increasingly difficult to keep my vow of “remaining in the present, even though the future looks so good” like the faulty human that I am. This is causing for some mixed feelings of the now and the then for me. Like some kind of awkward and painful limbo. I feel like I am somehow finally ready mentally and emotionally to move on to the next chapter of my life. That it's taken me so long to feel ready to move on. And inside my head I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm finally ready. Let's go right now."

Maybe not from the familiar to the unfamiliar, 

but from the comfortable to the adventure, 

the part that does not involve seeing my best friend every day to the part in our story that does, 

from the old to the new chapter, 

to the one so heavily involving him in the daily 

and mundane activities 

from the one where I don’t hear his voice for two weeks. 

There is a serious amount of disequilibrium inside of me, inside of my head and my heart.
One that I must simply work through or suck up for the next seven months. Both choices which are proving very difficult for me lately.

I love my present life. I love the people around me and the places I get to go. Do not get me wrong. 

I love everything about the experience and the place I am in now, both the physical and metaphorical. But I am so incredibly torn. So one foot on one side of the line and one foot on the other.

Maybe growing up isn’t so bad after all. Even if it means not know how you feel being where you are and where you're going daily. This life is painful and terrifying. But it is good.
Always good.

Even through the discomfort.

Fears and perfect love.

I sat in the small, dimly lit room containing roughly ten of my peers during my senior seminar class this week. Exhausted and defeated, deflated and slightly rejected. By myself, my doubts, my fears. Without even knowing it, too. Soon enough, my professor was telling us to take out the same paper we covered each week and start the hour of our time with writing, just as we did every week. I followed directions just as I expect my own students to do and mindlessly took out my pen.

"This week we are going to write on our fears."

I heard her level voice say quietly just over the silence of the white noise of the radiator and the other ten exhausted student teachers in the tiny conference room. 

Immediately, my mind snapped to attention and my heart spooked like a racehorse shot from a gate. I stared at the blank white walls, at the other twenty-somethings in the room, at my blank paper and at the pen in my hand. I knew what I was supposed to do. I was given the directions. And I most certainly have more than enough fears to write about, but my heart and my mind screeched for me to stop. To not share. To not open my mouth and my heart, to not dare move that pen for one second onto the paper. To keep my fear comfortably yet so intoxicatingly shut up inside of me. Looking around at everyone else in the room as they wrote furiously in the allotted time, I shifted my eyes from the pen in my hand to the blank paper in my lap and connected them hesitantly and vulnerably. 

"I am fearful that..." I wrote. 

"I am fearful that I am not enough." I finished.

And like an opened box filled with helium balloons my fears floated out from inside of me, from where I had been storing them tightly away. My eyes immediately shifted around the room to make sure no one else's eyes could mysteriously read over the top of the angle that my paper was being held. My paranoid heart lurched back with the reality of my fears, now written on the paper in my lap

"I am fearful that I am not enough. That I am not doing enough, being enough, teaching enough, helping enough, for my students. I am fearful that their misunderstandings are always my fault and that their failures are the direct result of my teaching or poor teaching.

I am fearful that I am not good enough,

not quick enough,

not skilled enough,

not enough."

I finished furiously scribbling on my paper as my professor's voice hummed on in the background like a forgotten television in the corner of a busy family's living room. Something about putting down our pencils and talking out. Something about who would be willing to share their fears. People are me, my peers who I had been with for almost four years now started sharing what they had written. To my surprise I was not the only one with fears, with the same type of fears about myself, about being good enough, being enough, or could I even do this? "Once you start caring about your students in your fears, you are truly a teacher." My professors voice echoed through my thoughts. "Once you start thinking of them in the foreground of your concerns, of your thoughts and of your teaching, you are there. You are making yourself better for them. You are a teacher." 

Maybe that means I am a teacher. Or that I am heavily on my way to becoming one. After all, isn't that what this education is for? All this hard work? All these hours working in the field? These lesson plans and assignments? But it's more than that. It's the feelings. The passion I feel. The way I feel when I can help one of my kiddos, or when they choose to come to me for help. The way I feel after I have to have a 'stern talkin' to' with them and they apologize and mean it, or the way they are so eager to share an irrelevant story with me first thing in the morning before they have even set down their bags.

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18. 

I like the way The Message translates part of this verse. "There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear." I love what I do, I love what I'm becoming, what I am continuously learning how to do. I certainly still have a lot of learning. But maybe I should focus more on loving what I'm doing, which in-turn comes across as loving my kiddos, loving why I'm doing it and why I am called to do so. In our class, we have been talking about that this isn't just some regular education course, this is our calling. We didn't simply decide one day, "hey locking ourselves in a room full of high-energy students who constantly demand our love, instruction and attention for eight hours of the day every day, sounds like a great idea." No. What are you, crazy? Who thinks that stuff?

We, I decide this because God called me to it, He made me for it.

Because I am capable of the love, not crippled by the fear.