The tip of the iceberg

It has been a grueling week and a half of teaching. And it's only Wednesday.

I have had nightmares of teaching math... and they are well-founded. Every day I have way too many furrowed brows and narrowed eyes staring at me in confusion as I try to come up with yet another way to explain how to find fractions of a set, subtract fractions from whole numbers, and find three fifths of twenty... I've been at the end of my rope. For days.

But today we had a breakthrough.

I had little gasps of "oooh!" or "really? that's it?" or "OH! I get it!" Slowly I heard sighs of relief all around the room. I heard them pick up their pencils once again as they decided they would pick it back up and keep trying. (They had gotten in the rotten habit of just giving up, putting their pencil down, and checking out.)

I wanted to make sure I didn't breathe too soon. But I made an off-hand comment... that they were at the tip of the iceberg. I meant that they were at the verge of completely understanding everything we've been working on for weeks... everything in fractions was about to come to a head.
They looked at me, confused once again, until one spunky child shouted out, "wait... we're about to go down like the Titanic?"

I had meant the opposite. That the tip of the iceberg was a good thing. And now as I think about it, I realize I may have used the phrase incorrectly.

But.

I realize I am at the same point in my life right now. At the tip of the iceberg.

I began studying the idea of my "identity in Christ" for the first time. I'm not one of those girls with huge "identity" issues... as I told myself before I started the study. It's probably why I avoided studying it.

Welp. I have been brought to the iceberg. The point where everything I have always known has been pushed deep into my heart. It has punctured my heart, and it has flooded it with the truth that I have always known, yet never grasped. I am drowning in grace. Drowning in the love of my Savior... unsure of what to do with what my Savior has done for me... except to fall in complete awe of Him and what He has chosen to make me: His child -- accepted, loved, free, guiltless, and righteous.

I pray each of you may crash into this iceberg, your lives transformed by His love.