Month 1: Honduras
January 17, 2014
For as long as I can remember, people have told me I was meant to be a teacher. My partner and mentor teachers all sang my praises. My professors rewarded my hard work with good grades and continuous encouragement. I won an award in college for it. I don’t say any of this to brag… It was what I was told and what I knew: I was meant to be a teacher.
But after a year teaching, I was lost. Though it was a relatively successful year, I was miserable the whole time. My anxiety was through the roof. I spent every Sunday sobbing. I slept 4 hours a night and worked the other 20. My social life was gone. I felt like a target in my school and did everything I could to hide. It’s not that I thought teaching would be easy. I knew it would be far from it. However, I did not expect to be miserable.
I was supposed to be a teacher, so what was going on? Didn’t God make me to do this? Wasn’t this how I was going to make my mark on the world? Why would I be so good at something to not use it? How did I go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows? Why did I lose my passion? Did God take it back?
I have asked myself these questions continuously for a year now, with no answer. Until today, as I sat on a roof in Honduras, thousands of miles from my classroom, reading a book.
“It’s about pride. He asks if we’ll give up that thing we are so proud of, that thing we believe causes us to matter in the eyes of the world, and give it up to follow Him. He asks ‘Will you take what you think defines you, leave it behind, and let Me define you instead?'” – Bob Goff, Love Does
Yes, I am good at teaching. I don’t believe that anymore, but people tell me. But my teaching wasn’t about God. It was not absent of Him, but it was not all about Him. I took a gift and turned it into a selfish ambition. So now I give that back to God. Take teaching from me, and redefine me. I may not be Miss Jones anymore, but I am a daughter of the King, humbly asking Him to remake me. My worth will be found in Him alone.
Maybe He will give me teaching back. Maybe He will transform it. Or maybe I will not get it back at all. But in laying this at His feet, I trust that when He redefines, no transforms me, that He has my best intentions in mind, and that all the glory will be for Him alone.
