Well my blogging friends, I have just completed my first year as a full time teacher, mom, piano teacher, wife, friend (did I have any time for that??!), performer, runner, whew!!!!
So, I celebrate by hoeing, digging, weeding, and planting. All year I felt the ups and downs that accompanies working with kids ages 6 through 18 (and the adults that surround them all). Their emotional rollercoasters, I vowed, would not become mine but as you love, pour into, nurture, weed, hoe, and water you hope that you will get to see the beautiful harvest by June.
Unfortunately, with kids, the harvest isn't completed in a neat 9 month period. Some kids I saw blossom right before my eyes as the year unfolded. I watered, nurtured, and poured into those kids with easy enthusiasm. Others seemed like the weeds of this world were choking them out and their color seemed to fade from bright green to a pale yellow, their fruit never quite had a long enough growing season to ripen.
A few weeks ago, my mind was so focused on the few that I didn't reach, didn't see change for the better, or didn't see mature that I lost focus of the bountiful harvest happening right around me. This blog tends to chronicle my "aha moments" on my runs of which I share this latest one - I spent the full 7 miles slowly moving from student to student in my room, praying over them and letting God flood my heart with a clear picture of His giftings in their lives - are they courageous, joyful, spontaneous? Are they servants, shephards, or pastors? Are the industrious, perseverant, or determined? And sure enough, each student's giftings, their fruit, became perfectly ripe in my mind's eye and I decided to spend the next class period, publicly blessing them with the fruit I discovered in them.
So today, as I plant, weed, hoe, and dig I do so knowing that my efforts will bring forth a more guaranteed result of a bountiful fall harvest that we will eat on all school year. Unlike with kids, I can see these little seeds grow. I can easily determine what to do to help them with their struggles by weeding, picking off bugs, and watering more. It's part of the restorative process my heart needs this summer to get ready for another year in the fall. I need some time to see the fruit of my labor on silent little plants, reaching towards the Sun, and growing just to nourish my family.
yes, a summer working with the more predictable will render me ready for the more slow process of nurturing kids that comes in the fall. Good thing that the start of the year is coupled with the fall harvest as it provides a beautiful daily reminder that if I tend the garden carefully, a harvest will happen.
