Sunday, July 24, 2005
Back.
I'm back from summer vacation.
Back in Georgia, where it's a good 20 degrees hotter than it is in Virginia.
Back in Georgia, where work awaits.
I'm hoping things will be as good this year as they were last year. I don't know how they could be. But then, I never thought I'd have as good a year as I did last year, so who knows?
Things are developing that may lead to this year's being good. Or really bad. Who knows? God knows. If you pray, please pray for me.
"Pray what for you?" you say. "You're not telling me anything specific to pray for."
True enough. So you could maybe pray, "Please, Lord, let Stephen get what he wants, if it's going to be good for him, and if not, let Stephen be able to deal with it. Whatever Your will is."
Reading over that, it seems awfully self-serving. I apologize. It also sounds a lot like that old Smiths song, the one that goes:
Please please please
Let me get what I want
This time
Lord knows it would be the first time
Thing is, it wouldn't be the first time, and considering my life through God's eyes, it is downright amazing how often He really does let me get what I want. I'm not one of those name-it-and-claim-it charlatans who insist that the Christian life is all about having enough faith in God that He has no choice but to reward your earnest devotion with big houses and Cadillacs, but I do believe that He gives good things to His children; and to the extent that my life is full of good things, I conclude that I must be one of His.
Anyway, I'd appreciate prayer, if you don't mind.
UPDATE:
Well, I didn't get it. And now that I didn't -- for this year, at least -- I'll come out and say what it was:
My greatest wish for myself is that I'll be able to go to the high school down here and teach -- particularly, that it'll happen before the group of kids who left the middle school last year, and are now 9th graders, graduate from high school. And this week I came so close it hurts. But no cigar.
When I got back to Georgia Sunday night, there were messages on my answering machine from a couple of co-workers who were frantic (knowing of my wish) to tell me that the high school did indeed have a Spanish position open. The messages were from Thursday, and I hoped the position hadn't been filled.
Monday morning, I went to the personnel director's office and asked... and was told, with sincere regret, that the position had been filled on Friday. Two days before I got back.
Now, there are certainly recriminations on my own part. If only I'd left a number my co-workers could reach me at in Virginia. If only I had a cell phone. If only I'd come back a few days early. If only I'd checked the school webpage for job announcements.
If, if, if.
But one of the comforts of believing in a sovereign God who causes "all things" to "work together for the good" of His people (Rom. 8:28) is the knowledge that if this didn't happen this year, then it wasn't meant to happen... and if it never does happen, then that's for the best. I freely admit that it's very cold comfort at this point, but there it is.
And there are a couple of other aspects to the matter, too, that make me... not exactly happy about the outcome, but not as devastated as I might be.
For one thing, that group of 9th graders is now at the 9th Grade Academy, a sort of subsidiary of the high school, not the high school itself. And they won't be eligible for Spanish for a couple more years. (Unless they've changed things. Which isn't out of the question.) So getting there this year wouldn't have put me back with them immediately.
And for another, there's that group of rising seventh-graders who are going to be in my year-long high-school credit class. One of them is an autistic kid who rarely responds well to his teachers... but who seems to have taken to me, for whatever reason. His mother and I had a long talk last spring about him. We may end up hating each others' guts, but I'd hate to leave him (and the other kids who requested that class) to the ministrations of someone else. I'd hate to not even have a chance to see if there were any way I could help him.
And there's always the chance that one of the three Spanish teachers at the high school will leave next year. Or that I'll get another endorsement on my certificate that would allow me to come in and teach some other class.
I'm not about to give up hope now.
|
Back in Georgia, where it's a good 20 degrees hotter than it is in Virginia.
Back in Georgia, where work awaits.
I'm hoping things will be as good this year as they were last year. I don't know how they could be. But then, I never thought I'd have as good a year as I did last year, so who knows?
Things are developing that may lead to this year's being good. Or really bad. Who knows? God knows. If you pray, please pray for me.
"Pray what for you?" you say. "You're not telling me anything specific to pray for."
True enough. So you could maybe pray, "Please, Lord, let Stephen get what he wants, if it's going to be good for him, and if not, let Stephen be able to deal with it. Whatever Your will is."
Reading over that, it seems awfully self-serving. I apologize. It also sounds a lot like that old Smiths song, the one that goes:
Please please please
Let me get what I want
This time
Lord knows it would be the first time
Thing is, it wouldn't be the first time, and considering my life through God's eyes, it is downright amazing how often He really does let me get what I want. I'm not one of those name-it-and-claim-it charlatans who insist that the Christian life is all about having enough faith in God that He has no choice but to reward your earnest devotion with big houses and Cadillacs, but I do believe that He gives good things to His children; and to the extent that my life is full of good things, I conclude that I must be one of His.
Anyway, I'd appreciate prayer, if you don't mind.
UPDATE:
Well, I didn't get it. And now that I didn't -- for this year, at least -- I'll come out and say what it was:
My greatest wish for myself is that I'll be able to go to the high school down here and teach -- particularly, that it'll happen before the group of kids who left the middle school last year, and are now 9th graders, graduate from high school. And this week I came so close it hurts. But no cigar.
When I got back to Georgia Sunday night, there were messages on my answering machine from a couple of co-workers who were frantic (knowing of my wish) to tell me that the high school did indeed have a Spanish position open. The messages were from Thursday, and I hoped the position hadn't been filled.
Monday morning, I went to the personnel director's office and asked... and was told, with sincere regret, that the position had been filled on Friday. Two days before I got back.
Now, there are certainly recriminations on my own part. If only I'd left a number my co-workers could reach me at in Virginia. If only I had a cell phone. If only I'd come back a few days early. If only I'd checked the school webpage for job announcements.
If, if, if.
But one of the comforts of believing in a sovereign God who causes "all things" to "work together for the good" of His people (Rom. 8:28) is the knowledge that if this didn't happen this year, then it wasn't meant to happen... and if it never does happen, then that's for the best. I freely admit that it's very cold comfort at this point, but there it is.
And there are a couple of other aspects to the matter, too, that make me... not exactly happy about the outcome, but not as devastated as I might be.
For one thing, that group of 9th graders is now at the 9th Grade Academy, a sort of subsidiary of the high school, not the high school itself. And they won't be eligible for Spanish for a couple more years. (Unless they've changed things. Which isn't out of the question.) So getting there this year wouldn't have put me back with them immediately.
And for another, there's that group of rising seventh-graders who are going to be in my year-long high-school credit class. One of them is an autistic kid who rarely responds well to his teachers... but who seems to have taken to me, for whatever reason. His mother and I had a long talk last spring about him. We may end up hating each others' guts, but I'd hate to leave him (and the other kids who requested that class) to the ministrations of someone else. I'd hate to not even have a chance to see if there were any way I could help him.
And there's always the chance that one of the three Spanish teachers at the high school will leave next year. Or that I'll get another endorsement on my certificate that would allow me to come in and teach some other class.
I'm not about to give up hope now.
