Hello All,
Well, I have learned quite the lesson over the past several days, and I thought I would take a little time to share.
I have had the flu for the past five days, but I am thankfully recovering now. While I recognize that it is cold and flu season and that that may be a normal duration for such a sickness to last, I am not one for getting sick. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been genuinely sick (enough to cause me to have to miss class, work, or somehow alter the pace of my life) in the past four years, and most of those were in Honduras. To put it into perspective, my roommates throughout college have never seen me sick until now. If I feel myself getting sick, I can eat a bowl of soup, drink a cup of tea, and go to bed early in order to be completely fine the next day. God has given me an amazing immune system, and I rarely take medicine. However, God also knows that one of my greatest struggles is with thinking that I am self-sufficient.
To be quite honest, student teaching has been a much more difficult experience than I expected--not for reasons of the planning, grading, or work load. The work load, while it is a juggle, isn't any more strenuous than the work load I've carried before with 20 credit hours and three jobs. I have actually been busier. But, for whatever reason, perhaps due to situations and insecurities coming out of Honduras, I struggled with a real timidity and sense of inadequacy. It doesn't really help that I feel as if Shepherd didn't prepare me well enough, but I knew that already going into the experience. Oddly enough, some of the feedback that my facilitating teacher gave me was that I was too timid, didn't have a loud enough voice, etc. which hasn't been a problem for me in a teaching situation for years. Many of my student teaching peers have never truly taught before (other than maybe one or two lessons for field work). But I have had tons of teaching experience, starting from when I was a little kid--being the oldest, you're always teaching someone something whether you realize it or not. I've taught through church events and groups. I've tutored. I've taught through RA programs. And I just taught this past summer in Honduras--which was to first through sixth graders (totally out of my comfort zone) in a rural area with no electricity where I knew no one, and I taught in Spanish instead of English! So even as I was conscious of my timidity and insecurity as I faced each new class period (I've only actually taught two days with sick days and snow days factored in), I was baffled as to why I was overwhelmed with a sense of not being good enough.
I know that part of it was dealing with being back from Honduras. Although I have had to deal with re-entry so many times now that I can generally predict how I'm going to feel, it doesn't prevent those feelings from still knocking me on my butt. Going from a relaxed culture of very few plans and sense of calming flexibility to a rigid schedule governed by bells and printed lesson plans was quite the wake up call. Going from a warm place not only in terms of temperature but also of friendly, family-oriented people to a cold culture of snow and ice and isolation is difficult. Going from a place where it is normal and wonderful to scoop children up in your arms and hug everyone around you to a place where you are lectured about being careful to never touch your students is a letdown. Going from a place where I rarely care what I look like, gladly make mistakes in Spanish in my attempts to communicate, and feel the most like myself to a place where I have to dress a certain way, am expected to be flawless at Spanish because I'm the teacher, and feel nothing like myself leaves me with the overwhelming feeling of being very alone ands very inadequate. The difficulty of culture shock is knowing when it is appropriate and godly to adapt and when it is appropriate and godly to refuse to conform.
When I left school last Tuesday, I felt so defeated and as if I would never be enough. I only taught for two days! I am ridiculously hard on myself--moreso than anyone else ever pressures me. Because I genuinely respect my facilitating teacher, I struggled with wanting her approval, and in typical me fashion, I tried to tackle too much at once. I was sleep deprived, not eating much, and guilting myself over everything. I haven't been to school since last Tuesday. We had three snow days and then the weekend. On Friday, I felt myself getting sick, so I did my usual soup and tea routine and tried to sleep it off. Saturday, I was worse with coughing and the like. Even my attitude toward being sick demonstrated my lack of dependency on God. I kept thinking, "This can't be happening. I cannot afford to be sick right now." I only get three excused absences from student teaching. I hate taking medicine, and I was adamant that I was just going to let my body beat it.
I tried every home remedy I could find--ginger, turmeric, honey, garlic, lemons, tea, Vitamin C, orange juice. Anthony gave me all kinds of all-natural supplements--stuff like olive leaf and a bunch of others I don't remember and had me drink pretty much straight lemon juice which lit my throat on fire but was probably good for it. It wasn't until my fever was so high that I was having dreams that they had to cut out a strip of my skull to allow my pounding brain to swell that I finally woke up and decided to take some medicine. After feeling truly awful even with OTC medicine for three days, I finally caved and asked Gabrielle and Anthony to take me to the doctor. (I also hate going to the doctor.) I got some medicine and started feeling better the same day.
During this time, I wasn't able to be a workaholic. There is nothing more humbling for a self-sufficient me than getting sick. I cannot heal myself, and when I am sick, it is completely obvious to me that I have no control. It gives me perspective. Because I had so much time on my hands, I was able to better listen to God and to truly pray. I realized that I hadn't truly given the student teaching experience to God. Whose classroom is it? Mine or His? Whose students are they? Mine or His? Who is the teacher? Me or Him? Is this time truly surrendered to God, or am I operating out of what I think I'm supposed to do? If I had to even ask myself those questions, the answers were clear.
Once again, I was reminded of Matthew 11:28-30:
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good--not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.
I had to begin to ask myself if I was willing to follow Jesus in the classroom, to be obedient no matter the cost. I had to come to terms with putting Jesus first--ahead of human expectations (including my own).
The sicker I was and the more that I sought God, the more joy that I felt. I felt so unspeakably blessed that God took the time to humble me, convict me gently, and still gave me the joy I needed to be my strength. While I was sick, I had the opportunity to work on my unit plan for Honduras some more, and as I poured over pictures, videos, and memories from my beloved home, rather than finding in myself the usual empty, hurting homesickness, I found the most profound sense of gratitude that brought me to tears on a daily basis. I have been going to Honduras for 4 years now--since I was 17-years-old, the same age as some of my students. I have made lasting friends and have developed a beautiful sense of family in that place. I have been there to see the ministry grow and change, and people grow and change. I was so blessed during this past trip that no one is ever surprised to see me any more because I have become a fixture of Manos Extendidas, a part of Honduras. . .just as Honduras has become an irreplaceable part of me. And the truth of the beauty of God's love that I see in the way that He has orchestrated my life just leaves tears streaming down my face. He is so good and so good to me.
I can't help but remember Isaiah 51:
For the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places, And He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song or instrument of praise.
I know that it's a work that God has done in me because I am inexplicably happy. I am usually quite happy, but this joy springs from a new place in my heart and defies even the darkest of circumstances--winter, separation from home and family, being overwhelmed, being the sickest I've been in a long time, losing friends, surrendering the deepest desires of my heart, and still having several weeks of student teaching left. Tomorrow I return to school. It is likely to be chaotic--everyone's behind; the students had a snow day Tuesday and a substitute today, and I feel rather lost as to what I'm even doing tomorrow. My only lesson plan is on a happy little post-it note. But, I am thrilled because I'm not the teacher; it's not my class; they're not my students. It all belongs to Jesus. I just want to follow Him for the sake of the call.
With love,
Sarah
