Snow Days

  
Wait for the Lord; be stouthearted and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:14

Being a teacher is such an awesome job!  It’s hard, it’s demanding, it’s emotional, it’s miss-understood and at times underappreciated. In the course of one day we can experience drama, tears, anger, frustration, defiance, sass, broken zippers, wet pants and throw-up on your floor.  We wipe tears and noses and glue stick out of hair.  We soothe sad hearts, rumpled feelings, bruised egos and worried parents.  We plan, prepare, teach, re-teach, cheer, cry and pray.  We love our job because it matters, because we want to make a difference and because God gave us a gift and led us to our classroom. We don’t do it for the glamour or the pay; we do it because we want to help create a world full of smart, confident, faithful humans.  We do it because it’s amazing in ways we can’t even describe.  An outsider would see a dozen reasons not to love our job but we ignore most of those and choose to love our job for a hundred tiny reasons that most people wouldn’t even recognize. We love the pictures, notes, melty bead creations, hugs, smiles and the spark in a students eye when they finally start to “get it”!  We love to see them develop, mature and outgrow bad habits. It really is the little things that keep us comin back each year.  And of course we all LOVE a good snow day!

Snow days are exciting and are like a sweet little gift from God that comes wrapped with a note that says, just rest this day and recharge your batteries and catch up on your paper grading! Knowing how excited we get at the report of a possible big snow, you can probably understand our disappointment this year as we’ve watched each and every major snow day producing storm pass right above or below us here in mid-Michigan.  We have only had ONE snow day all year…ONE! That’s crazy talk for this area folks!  We love our job but that lovely little surprise day off here and there is enough to make you giddy!  As we eek our way toward March the chances for a snow day are dwindling fast. I was pondering this the other day and realized it’s really ok because God is really smart and this year I just so happen to have my room full of middle lovelies I truly enjoy!  They have spunk, spark, joy and they fill my days with laughter so I think I’d kinda miss them if we didn’t have school. 

As I listened to the weather forecast for the next few days and realized we’d be in the 50’s by Friday it all hit me.  What if God waits on us like teachers wait on snow days?  What if he anticipated our coming and prepares for our arrival only to have us veer off in a different direction before we actually get to him.  What if he’s ready to provide the same rest, surprise and rejuvenation that a snow day does but we never get close enough to crawl into his arms to take advantage of it?  What if all we do is talk about it like a crazy weatherman talks about storms and never let our faith materialize?  What if all we do is come close and then let the breeze of the day pull us away in a new direction instead of in HIS direction? I realized that as wonderful and exciting and surprising as a snow day is…God is WAYYY better so my goal is not for a SNOW day but to wake up each morning and pray for a HIS day!

A Seed To Plant:  Make a list of all the things you are “anticipating”.  Are they things that will lead you closer to or away from the Lord?  Pray about your list and see if you can trade in some anticipation for some peaceful contentment.

Blessings on your day!