Faith prevails

The past couple of months have been a whirlwind to say the least and now that school has come to a close, I can relate some of the events of the past two months. I touched on this in my last post as well.  Needless to say, my professional life, and life in general, is about to change.

About two months ago I received a text to call a colleague and friend when I got a break in my classes.  That was it, just a text to call.  My curiosity was peeked and I was just a little bit excited because she has great ideas and my first thoughts went toward some brilliant idea for a project or paper she had come up with and wanted to involve me.  Well, I made the call about an hour later and boy was it SOME big project she was proposing.  Calling it a project is not the right word for it, but it’s all I could think of immediately after the call.  Her request came in two-fold.  I’m usually never one for a loss of words, but that day I couldn’t put two together if I had to.  Her proposal was for me to step in as an assistant professor for social studies education at The University of Alabama for one year (an interim position).  My mouth did the proverbial – it hit the ground.  WOW!  Me, be an assistant professor?  To step into my mentor’s shoes.  Are you kidding???  Heck yeah! I don’t know what took me the better part of a week to accept this position, but I did.  Starting August 16^th I will undertake a new professional challenge of being a teacher-educator.  Even two months later, I still can’t fathom the enormity of this opportunity. 

When I completed my Ed.D. last year I had all intentions of staying in the high school classroom and passing my passion for social studies along to the students.  I never really saw myself leaving this type of environment until I retired (5-10 years down the road).  I truly love the students who pass through my room.  Teaching is a second career for me and given the bashing that the teaching profession has taken this year, I could easily return to the private sector, but I LOVE what I do.  Why would I want to leave “my kids?”

I thought telling them would be one of the hardest things to do, but they were genuinely happy for me.  Not completely shocking, because I have/had a great group of students.  Some have taken a class from me every year they’ve been in high school.  The one qualm that I leave with is that some of them will not be able to fulfill their wish to take my AP psychology class.  I may be gone from the school, but I’ll still be in town if they need me J

The second question involved a professor who was unable to teach his summer class and would I take over.  It was a class that I felt confident that I could teach, in that I had taken many classes related to the subject matter and had taught much of in on the high school level.  I was contemplating it, even more so than the first request, when she mentioned that it would be taught in Ireland.  It took me all of about two seconds to reply with a resounding yes!  To teach civil rights in Ireland!  What an AWESOME opportunity.   This coming Tuesday, eleven students and I will depart for Ireland to compare American civil rights to Irish civil rights and tour the country.  What professor can say they have a new position and their first class/assignment takes them to the beautiful country of Ireland???

As special to me as the events have been, and I can’t even properly relate them with enough magnitude, it was the revelation that became clear to me when I reflected back on the transpiration of events.  What became clear is that God once again reminded me that He is in control of my life and He will direct how it should go.  When I look back on every major event in my life – meeting my husband, having my children, getting my jobs, etc. – I see just how much He played a hand and how little I did.  I think and hope that I am finally gaining the wisdom to quit trying to control everything and let Him do it for me.  He is a much better director than I am.  Throughout everything that has happened this year I have been praying for faith.  The faith to trust that things will happen just the way God wants them to.  When I think of my life at the moment, I am reminded of Mark 11:22-24, “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23 “Truly, I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

I have faith, but it is nowhere near the faith that I should have and that is something I will continue to work on.   Although faith (religion) and education do not go hand-in-hand in our secular world I am thankful that I live and teach in a region that is so grounded in religious principles and that I have a core group of students, colleagues, and friends who can openly share our God successes.