looking back

In cleaning my room today, I found a journal I kept during spring semester of my first year of college. So that would have been spring '05, almost 4 years ago. There are a lot of songs that I had started to write, hoping one day to put music to them to play. This one in particular struck me. It was written during a really difficult time in my life, learning to lean on God and trust Him with my circumstances and with what walking with Him really means...

please remember...
it's not me, this weakness that You're seeing
it's not me, this emptiness before You, only 'cause I adore You

hold me tight so I don't fall apart at Your feet
hold me close, make sure my heart still beats


I know it's not much, but I can still hear how I wanted it to sound in my head.
Maybe someday...

wrestling with God

"You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God, and wrestle in prayer for other people; but to wrestle with God in prayer is unscriptural. If you ever do wrestle with God, you will be crippled for the rest of your life. If you grab hold of God and wrestle with Him, as Jacob did, simply because He is working in a way that doesn't meet with your approval, you force Him to put you out of joint (see Genesis 32:24-25 ). Don't become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because "we are more than conquerors through Him . . ." ( Romans 8:37 )...We don't have to fight or wrestle with God, but we must wrestle before God with things. Beware of lazily giving up. Instead, put up a glorious fight and you will find yourself empowered with His strength."
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, December 16th

Man, that Oswald Chambers... he sure knew his stuff! If you haven't check out that devotional, you really should. He was for sure a man that knew the Lord. I've had this devotional for almost three years now and it sometimes makes me laugh how much I need to hear those things on the day I pick it up.
I attended a funeral yesterday of a loved one's close family member. Death has a way of making you see things differently. For me, it has brought out my feelings of wanting so much more than I'm living right now. I've been fighting the urge to wrestle with God about my current circumstances and where he has me placed right now. It's so hard, but I know I can't fight Him on this. With where He has me right now, I know I need to be wrestling the things of the world that I see around me, not fighting God because I'm not where I want to be.

Thank You, Lord, that You know what Your plan is. Help me to humbly rest in the hope and peace that comes from You. Help me to walk and live each day with obedience and open eyes and heart to the things You have for me...

There is hope for me yet, because God won't forget all the plans He's made for me, have to wait and see, He's not finished with me yet...

ezer kenegdo

I first wrote this post three years ago on a different blog. From when I was just starting to grow in my relationship with God. He was healing a lot of the hurts of my past and showing me what my worth was.

"It is not good for the man to be alone. So I will make a helper suitable for him." -- Gen. 2:18

When translating this book from Hebrew, the word for that underlined part was ezer kenegdo.

The word ezer is only used twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance, the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately.
...Most of the contexts are life and death, by the way, and God is your only hope. Your ezer. If he is not there beside you, you're dead. A better translation of ezer would be "lifesaver." Kenegdo means alongside, or opposite to, a counterpart.
-- from Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge

God made woman last. After he made all of the creatures that roam the earth, after he made Adam to rule over them, after he had Adam name them all. That is when he made woman. The crown of creation. Man couldn't be alone. He needed someone. A counterpart. To share his life with. To share adventures with.

Ezer kenegdo. Life-saver and counterpart. This word portrays not only how powerful the presence of a woman is in a man's life, but also how perfect they fit together.
That's what I want to be.

The things I was learning and the truths the God put on my heart during that time blows me away. Ezer kenegdo has really been on my heart a lot lately.
Ezer means help.
Kenegdo means suitable for him.
That's what I want to be, what I know God created me to be.
I can't wait for that day....

romans 8:18

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." --Romans 8:18

This verse was laid heavy on my heart this year back in the spring. Little did I know how this verse would permeate every area of my life as the year comes to a close. The last three months, I have been living somewhere that I don't want to live, going to a job that I don't want to be doing... all because I know this is what the Lord has asked of me. It's so hard to continue living here and coming to this job that I don't like. I want so much more than this...
I love my family. I love speaking Spanish. I love teaching.
But this arrangement... is suffering- for me.
I know I have to just trust God for my future and cling to the hope I know I have in Him.
I know that I can't do this without Him. I can't love my family nor teach these kids without Him working through me.

It's all Him, not me.
This is my hope... that my present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in me.

there is hope for me yet...

The days seems to get harder and harder for me to keep getting up, going to school, and trying to teach high school kids Spanish. The novelty has worn off. The kids are obnoxious and most of them don't really want to learn Spanish, they're just taking it because it's the "easiest" class. Those things are only part of why it's getting hard. My passions are different.
Yes, I am passionate about Spanish and I love speaking it.
Yes, I am passionate about teaching.
But these passions I have don't quite fit in this context, which is probably exactly why God has me here, so I can learn to rely on Him more... and really, I don't know if they'll ever quite fit just so that I can rely on Him. HOWEVER, there is a bigger passion that I have that I long to be pursuing WITH the other passions all in one, all together. That passion is Jesus.
Where I am right now is so hard for me because I absolutely long to be serving the Lord, teaching others about Him, and serving Him with my gift of Spanish.
I know that He is using my gifts and talents to glorify Himself in this place and to teach me and to prepare me for other things He has in store for me.... but it's so hard to not really be able to talk about God in my workplace (I can only talk about it if people ask me)
It's so hard to be in this place.
But there's a scripture that comes to mind and gives me HOPE.
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." --Colossians 3:23-24

there is hope for me yet, because God won't forget all the plans He's made for me, i have to wait and see, He's not finished with me yet
still wonderin' why i'm here, still wrestling with my fear, but oh, He's up to something...

méxico lindo

mi méxico lindo... cómo te extraño...
can't wait for this summer...

joy

I'm exhausted. I had one of the longest days of my life yesterday, got less than 7 hours of sleep and had to be up at five to start a new day. If I could have an IV of coffee pouring into my veins, that would be appreciated. But today, I sit here at my job that I don't really want to be doing, trying to work on things, trying to fight sleepiness...

and I feel this immense joy in my heart.

joy n.
a. Intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness.
b. The expression or manifestation of such feeling.

I know, given my current circumstances, that the only reason I can feel this joy is because of God. It's more than just an emotion; it's a soul-deep peace that sparkles in your eyes. When I feel it, I remember... after all that time of not having it, that long year and a half, I remember when my best friend told me, "You've got your joy back."
That soul-touching joy that comes from trusting and following my LORD, Yahweh.

The LORD is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy
and I will give thanks to him in song. -Psalm 28:7

It has nothing to do with external things. Just internal trust and hope.
There is nothing that I like about my circumstances.
but He is my strength and my delight.
amen.

my heart

"sing us a song and we'll sing it back to you
we could sing our own, but what would it be without you?"

I can't stand this. I'm getting so antsy.
I can't do this for the rest of my life. I don't want to. I know there's so much more to my heart than this. So many more desires and passions. That have been put in my heart by God.
But this is where I am right now, so I know I have to be ALL here. 100%. No less. I can't think and dream too much about the future because I will start living for that instead of living here where God has me now.
I'm so torn. I hate this.
I can't do this without You, Lord.

this heart, it beats, beats for only you,
my heart, my heart is yours...

am./pm.?

I gave my students a quiz today and one of the things on it is telling time in Spanish, which is quite a complicated thing...
I won't get into all of it, but there was something that really struck me today about how WE tell time (in America) that just makes no sense at all. So, just like we have special words for 12 pm (we call this noon) and 12 am (we call this midnight), so does Spanish (mediodía and medianoche, respectively)
On the quiz, there were pictures of a digital clock with AM or PM on the side so you know what time of day it was and students had to write out the times in Spanish. One of them happened to be 12 PM (which is noon) and they all wrote, "Es medianoche"
At first, I thought maybe they were just over thinking it, forgetting that we call 12 PM noon and 12 AM midnight. And then as I started to think about it more... I realized that in Spanish, they gernally use military time (you know, the 24-hour clock) when telling time. So they have no problem distinguishing between the time of day because they know.
What doesn't make sense to me is why on earth would we change the AM to PM at the 12th hour? Think about it... we count 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11... and THEN at the next 12, we switch to PM and start over... at 12... and then AFTER 12, we count 1-11...

We think we're so logical and that everyone should just speak English... but really English doesn't make much sense.
Call me crazy... that's ok. I'm a language nerd. I know it. I'm over it.

what's happening in schools today?

Here's an analogy for what is going on in schools today...

My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don't forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research.

He never hurts me, and I've got all my teeth, so when I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he'd heard about the new state program. I knew he'd think it was great.

"Did you hear about the new state program to measure the effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?" I said.

"No," he said. He didn't seem too thrilled. "How will they do that?"

It's quite simple," I said. "They will just count the number of cavities each patient has at age 10, 14, and 18 and average that to determine a dentist's rating.

Dentists will be rated as Excellent, Good, Average, and Below Average and Unsatisfactory. That way parents will know which are the best dentists. It will also encourage the less effective dentists to get better," I said. "Poor dentists who don't improve could lose their licenses to
practice."

"That's terrible," he said.

"What? That's not a good attitude," I said. "Don't you think we should try to improve children's dental health in this state?"

"Sure I do," he said, "but that's not a fair way to determine who is practicing good dentistry."

"Why not?" I said. "It makes perfect sense to me."

"Well, it's so obvious," he said. "Don't you see that dentists don't all work with the same clientele; so much depends on things we can't control?

"For example," he said, "I work in a rural area with a high percentage of patients from deprived homes, while some of my colleagues work in upper middle class neighborhoods. I don't get to do much preventive work. Many of the parents I work with can't afford to bring their children to see me until there is some kind of problem."

"Also," he said, "many of the parents I serve let their kids eat way too much candy from an early age, unlike other parents who understand the relationship between sugar and decay." "To top it all off," he added, "so many of my clients have well water which is untreated and has no fluoride in it. Do you have any idea how much difference early use of fluoride can make?"

"It sounds like you're making excuses," I said. I couldn't believe my dentist would be so defensive. He does a great job.

"I am not!" he said. "My best patients are as good as anyone's, my work is as good as anyone's, but my average cavity count is going to be higher than a lot of other dentists because I chose to work where I am needed most."

"Don't get touchy," I said.

"Touchy?" he said. His face had turned red and from the way he was clenching and unclenching his jaws, I was afraid he was going to damage his teeth.

"Try furious. In a system like this, I will end up being rated average, below average, or worse. "Some of my patients who see these ratings may believe this so-called rating actually is a measure of my ability and proficiency as a dentist. They may leave me, and I'll be left with only the neediest patients. And my cavity average score will get even worse.

On top of that, how will I attract good dental hygienists and other excellent dentists to my practice if it is labeled below average?"

"I think you are overreacting," I said. "Complaining, excuse making and stonewalling won’t improve dental health'...I am quoting from a leading member of the DOC", I noted.

"What's the DOC?" he asked.

"It's the Dental Oversight Committee," I said, "a group made up of mostly laypersons to make sure dentistry in this state gets improved."

"Spare me," he said. "I can't believe this. Reasonable people won't buy it," he said hopefully.

The program sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, "How else would you measure good dentistry?"

"Come watch me work," he said. "Observe my processes."

"That's too complicated and time consuming," I said. "Cavities are the bottom line, and you can't argue with the bottom line. It's an absolute measure."

"That's what I'm afraid my parents and prospective patients will think. This can’t be happening," he said despairingly.

"Now, now," I said, "don't despair. The state will help you some."

"How?" he said.

"If you're rated poorly, they'll send a dentist who is rated excellent to help straighten you out," I said brightly.

"You mean," he said, "they'll send a dentist with a wealthy clientele to show me how to work on severe juvenile dental problems with which I have probably had much more experience? Big help."

"There you go again." I said. "You aren't acting professionally at all."

"You don't get it," he said. "Doing this would be like grading schools and teachers on an average score on a test of children's progress without regard to influences outside the school, the home, the community served and stuff like that. Why would they do something so unfair to dentists? No one would ever think of doing that to schools."

I just shook my head sadly, but he had brightened. "I'm going to write my representatives and senator," he said. "I'll use the school analogy-surely they will see the point."

He walked off with that look of hope mixed with fear and suppressed anger that I see in the mirror so often lately.

humbled by love

The other night, I got to experience something amazing- being humbled by the love I was shown from another human being. I say human being because there have been many times when I have been humbled by God's love for me... but never His love shown through another human... not to this extent anyway.
This particular day was really hard for me. Something that hadn't really hit me yet until the other day is just how drastically different my community is. Let me explain... last year, I lived with three other girls, one of them was my best friend, and we all grew to be family. I also had led a bible study for the two previous years and always had a group of girls my age who I hung out with. NOW... I live at home with my family. My sister lives in Chicago. My best friend is halfway across the world. My other close friends are either still doing the college thing or live far away.
Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that I'm lonely. I'm around people all the time. But I don't have the same relational ties that I had before and my community is completely different. I don't have roommates, I don't have girlfriend, I don't have girl-time, I don't have girls nights out... nothing. I was feeling very alone...
But then there's this amazing man in my life... I shared with him that I was upset and generally why I was upset. And he said he wished he could be there to hug me (but you see he lives an hour away from me) and that was that, he said he had to go run some errands. I was feeling sad again after that because this man is very important to me and I didn't really feel like he cared that much... He called me two hours later to tell me that he was sending something to my house at 8:30 so to make sure I was there. When I pulled into my driveway around 8:25... there he was. Standing in my driveway with a dozen beautiful peach roses (the only kind I like) and with open arms.
I can't even express the humility I felt... I say that in all honesty. I was absolutely blown away by this act of him showing me how much he cares for me and wants to me to know that. Obviously, he knows that he cannot replace my best girlfriend... but he wants to do the best that he can for me to be with me in all situations of my life, in everything. I definitely didn't feel like I deserved it, but that act just points me to Christ...
Here I am,
humbled by the love that you give,
forgiven so that I can forgive
here I stand,
knowing that I'm Your desire,
sanctified by glory and fire
Now I've found the greatest love of all is mine,
since You laid down Your life, the greatest sacrifice
majesty, majesty
Your grace has found me just as I am,
empty-handed but alive in Your hands...

advocate

(disclaimer: this is a long rant)
Of all the roles Jesus plays in our lives, the one of the advocate has always stuck out in my mind. Being a teacher, we often get to be the advocate for our students in order to get them a better education. This is something I have known and, quite honestly, a lot of the reason why I feel drawn to teaching in urban schools. However, not being in an urban area right now, I can see that even these students NEED more than they're getting...

for other word-nerds like me, this is what advocate means:
ad·vo·cate (ād'və-kāt')
1. One that argues for a cause; a supporter or defender.
2. One that pleads in another's behalf; an intercessor.
advocate. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved September 16, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/advocate

The education system in our country is deteriorating. With standardized test scores determining "good" schools from "bad" schools and how funding gets dispersed...
High test scores = "good" school low test scores = "bad" school
The "good" school gets rewarded for their high marks and received more funding... but wait... how, then,is the "bad" school going to get any better if their funding is less?
So flip it, give low-scoring schools more money and higher scoring schools less... but then what would be the incentive to get high scores on those standardized tests if they know they can get more funding for being "bad"?
In our country, everyone has the right to an education... but what if the things we are trying to do aren't working to get our students the kind of education we are proposing? Shouldn't that warrant change?
Anyone can teach to a test... just because students score high on tests doesn't mean they are actually learning.
What's more... is that our economy becomes more and more globalized, we need to be prepared to enter into that and survive. Just so everyone knows, the world becoming globalized doesn't mean that everyone is going to learn English for us. We have one of the only public school systems in the world that doesn't require foreign (or world, as they are now referred to) languages starting from Elementary School. Knowing more than one language is a skill that our children and our children's children are going to HAVE to possess in order to survive. So if this is the trend and most research points to the fact that learning another language gets a LOT harder as you get older, why is it that World Language classes in Elementary schools are the among the first things to get cut from curricula?
I don't understand it... but this ignorance needs to stop. We can't expect that the world is just going to be at our beck and call and do whatever they need to do to make our lives easier. If you haven't noticed, the U.S. is not the most powerful country in the world anymore...

So what am I going to do about this?
Don't think I haven't thought about it already. I'm not going to be one of those people who have strong opinions and beliefs about something but don't do anything about it. These ideas have struck a chord in my heart... why can't I be the advocate for our students? Why can't I fight for them? The idea that I have right now... is to get my master's degree in Early Childhood Development and advocate for World Language programs and Bilingual Schools. So that every kid will graduate from high school with a high level of fluency in another language.

...or we could just declare a second national language for our country. Then students would HAVE to know two languages.

early mornings...

Being a teacher, I have to be at school earlier than the students to prepare for the day. I usually get up at 5 am, which is the earliest I've ever had to get up on a daily basis.
There's something that I've noticed on my early-morning drives to work on my way to work... I'm out too early to actually see the sunrise, but I get to see the beginning of it. But this is what happens.... I get in my car and I can see the sky getting lighter over to the east. As I'm driving, when the trees break up, I can see the colors in the sky. This morning, there were no clouds, so it was just pure sky... a small hint of redish-orange on the horizon, which fades to a yellow, then to a small, faint green shade and then a massive expanse of blue... which fades to deeper blue as you look up and over to the west. Most of my drive is north, and there are a lot of trees, so I can just see the sky getting lighter on my right... and I get so anxious to see the orange and red, because I know it's going to be beautiful. Then, on my last stretch of road before I turn onto the road my school is on (it's not even a mile) I'm finally going east and there's a break in the trees.... It's one of the most beautiful few moments of my day. Then, I fight my urges to just drive and park somewhere where I can watch the sunrise and turn north onto the road my school is on, and the color hides behind the trees. After I park my car, if I'm lucky, I can see little hints of color at the top of the trees... and sometimes the color of the sun reflecting off of the clouds in the sky...
It's absolutely beautiful.
For me, this also brings something else to mind...it makes me think about life and how throughout all of it, we get to see little glimpses of God's glory... but we won't get to fully experience it until we're with Him in heaven. But when we see those little glimpses... we're so excited for the next one we'll get... and it's SO beautiful...

kids say the darndest things...

Last thursday was the last day I was in school, because of friday grad classes. I was teaching the Spanish 1 classes the geography of Latin America. Why is it that we're so bad at knowing where other places are in the world? Are we really that self-consumed?? Ill stop there with that, that would be a whole other issue and take away from the point of what I'm saying.
So my focus class is 4th hour, right before lunch, so they're always a little fiestier than any of my other classes. So we were going down the countries, south from Mexico, and we got to Honduras, a country that I've visited and that the kids know I've been to because I told them the day before. I asked the class if anyone knew the name of the country and that I had talked about visiting there... and one of the kids yells,"Starbucks!"
Now this didn't come completely out of no where. In the presentation I gave about myself the day before, I also shared with them my love for coffee, so he showed that he remembered... It just cracks me up! A country called Starbucks.... that would definitely be where I would want to live!
Anyway, kids are funny. And I can't wait to hear what else they say throughout this year. I'm looking forward to getting to know my students. That's good, right?
My mentor and I have also gotten to have some amazing conversations about faith and trusting God and following Him. I'm starting to see why this is exactly where God wanted me for this year, that He had this all planned out the whole time. It's given me so much peace, I'm not really worried about anything. Not a thing... it's that peace that transcends all understanding... that's what I've got...

primer dia

Well today was my first day on this end of the school day....

It was definitely different than I thought. It was very interesting to see how the kids varied in their attention spans as the day went on. I know it could have just been because it was the first day, but the kids seemed to be very unenthusiastic as the day went on. I was also struck by the variation in skill level across the classes. One of the Spanish 3 classes was really sharp and very talkative, while the later in the day 3 class was not up to par with the skills. We picked my focus class, too, 4th hour Spanish 1. They were so great and really understood what I was saying. I'm really excited to work with them. We'll see how things progress as the year goes on...

*One more cool thing that happened today... A lot of the teachers and administrators have a hard time distinguishing the interns from students (You know how all older people look about the same age? it's like that for older people when it comes to young people) But I was so excited today when one of the students in last hour recognized me as a teacher :)

We will see how much they respect my authority as the year progresses...

pre-adventures

So tomorrow is the start of the adventures... No, school doesn't start tomorrow, I'm meeting with my mentor teacher to set up our classroom and talk about things for the year.
Exciting, right?

I feel like it should be, but for some reason I'm really not. I feel very indifferent about starting student-teaching. Maybe it's because I still don't know what to expect. I mean, I have a rough idea of what's going to happen... but I have no idea what this is going to be like. I think I'm a little more nervous than anything else. I don't know what the kids are like, I don't know what the curriculum is like, I don't really know how my teacher teaches, I don't know what the district is like....

And what makes me the most nervous of all is how settled my heart is about doing this... about teaching... and about the possibility of God changing my heart to like it. I have confronted my fear of God changing my heart and now I'm at peace with it. And that makes me nervous, because I know He's going to do something through all of my experiences this year.... I just have NO idea what it's going to be...

Trusting when I can't see... that's the game, isn't it?

Thank You, Lord, that You already know my steps before I take them. Help me to continue trusting in You and relying on You for what I need... I know I can't do this on my own... and I don't want to...

Vamos para el caos...