sufficient

vocation

Here I am, at home, on a Friday morning when I should be at work. I took the day off, knowing that we don't get out of school until Dec 22 and wondering how I would ever get any Christmas shopping done by then. My students that found I out I would not be there today are shocked that I would take a day off just to take a day off. (This is rather ironic considering the number of them that do the same on a regular basis.) They keep asking "Why? Don't you love us?" The answer that runs through my head is something to the effect of "To keep myself from going insane!" There is certainly some truth to that. The last 2 days have been 12 hour days, I am stressed out, and I do have the constant feeling that everything is not quite ready, that I have forgotten to do something really important.

But truly, I love my job. There is nothing else that I could do. I read somewhere that vocation is "where your deep longing meets the world's deep need." I have that and it is something for which I am so grateful and thank God everyday. Even when things are rough, I know that I am in the center of God's will for me (at least vocationally), and I have some contentment.

In light of these things, I decided to put together a brief, inane list of reasons I love my job. More specifically, these are reasons that I love my students. I have some pictures at school I may upload to embellish the list when I go back to work.

1. My students draw Harry Potter sketches all over their vocabulary quizzes, but add themselves and me into the story lines. (picture to follow) Yesterday, I was heroically saved from an Avada Kedavra curse.
2. They come into my classroom before school starts and hide under desks, behind desks, under boxes half their size and "wonder" if I will see them and kick them out. (picture to follow)
3. When I am absent, they decorate my room with Happy Meal toys, creating elaborate scenes.
4. Not a day goes by that I don't hear the echoes of the Seminole War Chant float in from the hallway.
5. Pictures of the Duke Blue Devil wind their into any sort of project we create, most recently onto a collage describing Lennie from Of Mice and Men.

Somehow, none of these things have anything to do with literature, my subject matter. They are just about people- How amazing it is that I have been allowed to fulfill the second greatest commandment daily in my public school job. And no matter how stressed out I get, as a friend reminded me yesterday, "His grace is sufficient for you."

posted by CP @ 9:17 AM 4 thoughts