It’s been a weird day. For most of my life, my identity has been wrapped up in two things: teaching and singing. And tomorrow, I finish the teaching part, or at least the formal, this-is-what-I-do-for-a-living part. I’m feeling weird.
I have loved being a teacher. I think I’ve been pretty good at it. I never in a million years pictured myself walking away from the world of public education. I couldn’t for many years imagine myself doing anything else but standing in a classroom with teenagers. And now, I’m walking away. In two days, when people ask me what I do, the answer will not be, “I’m an English teacher.” It will be, “I’m a missionary.”
I think back on the hundreds and hundreds of kids who have crossed the threshold into my room over the last sixteen years. Some I adored, some I definitely did not, but I can honestly say I loved them all. I am so grateful to God for my teaching career. He called me into it, equipped me for it, gave me amazing opportunities through it, and now He’s leading me elsewhere. To quote a book I read once, I am speechless in the face of God’s disruptive grace.
Life as a teacher has been very comfortable for me. I have been blessed with a reputation that makes people do what I say. I haven’t had lots of issues with kids or parents. I’ve mostly been loved by my students—not all, certainly, but most. I have had incredible colleagues, people from whom I have learned so much, people who have challenged me to think about everything I am and believe. And now, I’m leaving that comfort to walk into the glorious unknown (again with the Steven Curtis Chapman quotes…must be a theme).
Today’s lesson, class, is that God is faithful. Faithful to complete the good work He began, and then faithful to take you in a whole new direction. I am a girl from Clarksville, Tennessee, an ordinary English teacher whom the Almighty has called to go and do something extraordinary. If He can do that, if He can make that happen…imagine what He can do with your life.
In my devotional this morning, Oswald Chambers basically said that what we are called to as disciples is to abandon the common sense, the practical, the realistic, and walk into whatever God is calling us to do, no matter how nonsensical it is. Jesus speaks to us directly, commanding that we abandon the life we thought we wanted for the life He has for us. Scary? A little at first. But I am tasting the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, and I can tell you firsthand—abandonment is a pretty exciting, glorious thing. Give it a try.
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