Six lessons I've learned during my two year teaching stint

The best part about teaching is the field trips. I got to pet a gator!


1.    Patience, it’s more than a virtue; it’s a way of life. The beautiful thing about children is that they will teach you about how much patience you don’t have. They will stretch you, just when you think you’ve mastered the ability to hold your own through everything…a child will throw up on his desk while another one is punching his friend. You, well you’re just patient through it all.

2.    Children are smart, incredibly smart. Children are so smart that when you ask them the meaning of life, they tell you “to make other people happy and to do kind things”

3.    Children learn more than you teach, they learn your behavior. In the adult world we often say things like “do as I say, not as I do .” Well reality is that children do as you do. They watch everything, then they internalize it, then they mirror you. It definitely gives insight on how you actually act. I am constantly convicted to be the best example I can be and to live up to my christian ideals especially at work.

4.    Teaching is more selfish than selfless. I said this hesitantly, but it’s true. Often we picture a teacher as this individual who works tirelessly and selflessly to better the lives of his/her students. In some ways absolutely, but there’s a deep abiding need to feel fulfilled that can only be satisfied when you impart into others.

5.    Children are rude, mean, annoying and incredibly sweet…all at the same time. They can, and will tear down your self-esteem by telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth…then they’ll call you a beautiful queen and fix it with a loving smile.

6.    You will grow to love people that have no relation to you, and can do nothing for you and you will love it. It’s parasitic the way children worm themselves into your heart. You’ll find yourself thinking about them in your off hours, buying them presents and gifts and praying for them. It’s a strange feeling to say the least and it reminds you how capable of love you actually are. It also reminds me of how God constantly showers his love on us, even when we do nothing to deserve it. From my most troublesome child to my perfect angels, my love is equal among all and that's just how Jesus views us.








What Faith actually looks like



There’s this myth that once you trust God, everything just happens.

 I always thought once you prayed the prayer of faith and actively committed your will to the Lord’s, that’s all supposed it would take. I believed like many Christians that God would continue to grant me the desires of my prayers as long as I earnestly believed. There’s even a beautiful scripture to support this thought: Psalms 37:4-5

“Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this”


Completely false.
Not the scripture, but our thinking surrounding the verse.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, yet unseen Hebrews 11:1. With that understanding, we know that our God while no respecter of persons, rewards faith. Each man is granted a measure of faith Romans 12:3. Before Jesus and the process of believing in the Messiah, God judged Abraham’s faith and because Abraham believed, he was saved. Genesis 15:6.

 

What many of us fail to realize is that the path of faith is not a straight line of believing and receiving. Faith is a long road of constantly not seeing. Then in an instant, God, after seeing your sustained belief through the tests and trials grants those desires which he has placed in your heart in the process.

Does God always work this way? No. Sometimes prayers are answered instantly, but for most of us, it’s the things we’ve prayed the longest about that truly allow us to testify to the faithfulness of God.

So what does the faith walk actually look like? 


It looks like tears, and questions.
It feels like fruitlessness and fear.
It hurts to believe while you seem to never receive.
It pulls you, and it stretches you.


Ultimately it asks you: do you believe God is truly who he says he is and that God will do everything he says he will do.

That’s why you doubt, and fight and question and cry and complain.
Because ultimately when God does finally come through for you, and in spite of you, you can only give Him glory for it all. 

I encourage you to maintain your secret prayers, especially through the tests, continue to trust God and always go back to 2 Timothy 2:13.

“If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”


All my love,
Obioma
Post Resurrection Sunday pictures with one of my sisters in Christ