One year ago today. My homecoming. August 27, 2018
How can it already be a year? How is it possible that I can remember every little, tiny thing about the race like it was literally yesterday, and yet that was already a year ago that I got on a plane to Detroit, MI? If it weren’t for the date on the paper today, I don’t think I’d really believe it. Time keeps flying by. I remember saying how I blinked and the race was over, but honestly, time never really slowed down after the race either. Just another blink and here I am. August, 27, 2019
You want to know what I did today to celebrate my homecoming? I taught my students.
Let me say it again: I taught MY students.
If you didn’t know me before the race, let me just give you a quick background of why I’m saying that teaching my students is a celebration:
After my student teaching semester in the Fall of 2016, I told myself that teaching wasn’t for me. I needed to use my degree for something else. Teaching wasn’t what I should be doing with my time. I just didn’t like it.
You wanna know the truth of why I said it wasn’t for me? It was and still is the biggest fear I have ever known in my whole entire life. Earth shattering, crying on the ground many nights, running away type of fear. The kind of fear that you pray you never ever have to face in your life. And quite frankly, I have no clue how to describe to you the reason why I was experiencing such fear. It was more than being scared of being bad at it, more than being scared that I was going to ruin another human’s education. I don’t know what it was. (Looking back, I realize that the devil planted such a deep rooted fear because he knew that’s where I would make the most difference.) But at the time, it made me want to run away forever.
So I ran. I ran the World Race. I got out and saw the world, met people who taught me what it was like to live life in full with Christ, saw things that made me rethink how I view people and creation, and was given incredible opportunities to face other fears that had manifested in my heart my entire life.
Fast forward to the end of the race. You know what the Lord told me about what I was going to do when I got home? Teach.
Ha okay. This should be interesting.
One of the greatest lessons I learned while I was gone on the race was how much I had let fear cripple me and how I needed to start taking stands against it. So I told the Lord, “Okay, I’ll teach but only if You promise to do it with me.”
So fast forward again to now, August 27, 2019. Today I spent an entire day with kids who call me Ms. Casady. They are MY kids. The ones who I get to love and challenge. They are the ones who let me conquer the greatest fear that hindered me for far too long. And if I’m being completely honest, there is absolutely no other place that I would want to be. I couldn’t even imagine not being a teacher. I have never ever felt more like myself than I do in that classroom. Like I said, it’s a celebration.
Which makes me reflect on how I felt about the classroom back in 2016 compared to what I feel now. The Lord literally 180’d me back to the classroom. What a good, good God to do that. I can tell you right now that I would not be in the classroom without His work in my heart. And to that, I proclaim, “FEAR CAN GO TO HELL.” I’m done with it. It will no longer have a hold on me. With a beer in my hand tonight, I am officially celebrating its death.
Anyone else want to join me in the celebration?
