My Classroom, My Mission Field

My classroom is my mission field. I knew going into this school year that it would be a challenging mission field.  I knew it would be hard work,  I knew there would be tears, I knew that I needed a big God to help me get through it.  I won't talk too much about my students in order to protect their privacy.  Honestly, this isn't about them, it's about me. It's about the lessons I have learned this year.  They are loving, funny, silly, and passionate.  The challenges they face are from no fault of their own.  Between cancer,  mental heath issues, autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, ADD and many more challenges that make up my beautiful mission field. 

Regardless of the challenges within the classroom things this school year seemed to have gone by with every bump and scrape that I could ever imagine. Never in a million years did I think a school shooting would happen. Stoneman Douglas which is less than a mile away from my school has rocked my world, my students have been traumatized and I have been left in a whirlwind. 

Everyday I live by the bible verse Colossians 3:23 NIV "Whatever you do, work at it with all your, heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters."  I live by this verse. I strive to do everything to perfection.(Sometimes its my downfall)  I strive to go bigger and do more because of this verse. I love my students and when they hurt, I hurt. When something is wrong, I try to fix it.  I work numerous hours planning, preparing, for each student, for each school day. Trying to fix every social emotional and educational need that has to be met.

I began to neglect myself and my friendships throwing myself into my job. I was a missionary and I had work to do.  I needed to fix things. I prayed tirelessly for my students.  

Over the course of this school year, I began to feel defeated. I would come home mentally and physically exhausted. Not wanting to go to work the next day. Feelings of defeat set in. I couldn't help my students that are hurting or those that needed my academic help. After, the tragedy at MSD things only got worse. This overwhelming feeling began to fester inside of me to the point that I wanted to quit. I couldn't take the feeling of defeat. The feeling that I was failing my students, because I could not fix the problems that were going on.  I wanted to walk away.  Things were not getting better at school, and the work load was getting bigger and bigger with each students' specific unique educational need.  Somewhere my mission field, became a job. A terrible job at that. One that no one would want to work at.

One Sunday night while sitting with a group of 10th grade girls that I help lead at church, we began to talk about prayer. My co-leader discussed praying for wisdom and how we do not do it enough. She was right. We don't. That night I prayed boldly for God to give me wisdom on what to do with this yucky situation. Instead of praying for my students I prayed for myself. I prayed that I would know what to do. Do I walk away? Do I take a leave of absence? Do I throw in the towel? Would God give me the next educational technique to help each student? 

God came through, like he always does. He gave me wisdom and opened my eyes. While I was busy with my eyes on things that were not meant for me to fix, I was missing every small opportunity to be a missionary.  My sadness, helplessness and defeat was a choice that I was making. I was seeing things all wrong. My perspective was off and I was blinded.  Instead of defeat and despair, I choose to be happy because God selected me! He selected me to cross paths with these 25 little bodies, their families and my coworkers. He selected me to help them on their path. 

Everyday I have the opportunity to serve God and my attitude was not reflecting that.  Matthew 25:45 "Truly, I tell, you whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."  If this was the attitude of serving the Lord, then I needed an attitude adjustment.  Would I ever think of giving up on the Lord? NO WAY!  There was not quitting. I would never just walk past Jesus suffering. What was I thinking?

The next day I went back to school. These were the "least of these", and I was ready to serve them!  As a student approached me with whatever unique challenge they were having I thought of the moment as an encounter with Jesus.  Every small moment would be time with Jesus. Every time I sat next to a child to work on a math problem, that would be my encounter with Jesus. Every interaction with a a student with unique needs was my encounter with Jesus.


What a beautiful thing to be able to have those encounters everyday!