Lost

In my family, I was always the responsible one. I rarely left things, misplaced things, or lost things. And on the off chance that I did, it was rarely something very important. However, since moving away from home, I have discovered that I am much more apt to lose things than I ever was before.

Lately I've been losing all kinds of things. Important things. When this happens, I am in complete turmoil. Gnawing anxiety takes over and I feel myself shrinking in fear of the consequences of the lost item. But in this new season of losing things, I have also discovered something very interesting about myself:

I often do not look for the lost item because I am afraid I won't find it.

One time when I lost my ID badge, I was pacing around asking myself about its whereabouts, all the while refusing to scour my bedroom for it. I knew I should look for it. But I was overwhelmed with fear of what would happen if I did and it wasn't there.

It sounds absolutely ridiculous as I type it out now. It sounds pathetic and silly and foolish.

But I am discovering this personality flaw in myself... and it doesn't just have to do with lost things. Fear of failure continually paralyzes me from doing the next thing. I'm afraid that my efforts won't be enough. That even if I do my absolute best, it won't be good enough. That I will fail anyway. Perhaps it's easier to give 99%, and attribute failure to the 1% I didn't put forth.

It's true for missing things, and it's true in my relationship with the Lord.

In a dry spell, when my desire for His presence is lacking, I avoid doing the one thing I know will get me back on track. I avoid Him. I avoid Him for fear that if I do give Him my time, perhaps He won't show me new things, He won't encourage and strengthen me, and He won't speak to me. And the terror of His silence keeps me at bay.

This week I read Luke 15. All about lost things. And all about what (normal) people do when they lose something. They go out and look for it. The shepherd looks for the lost sheep. The woman searches for the lost coin. The Father watches for His prodigal son.

So often I am that sheep, that coin, that son... wandering away. But I am so thankful that the Father is not me. That the Father goes out and looks. He searches. He leaves the ninety-nine to find the one. He cleans the dust and filth to find the one. He celebrates with joy when He finds the one.

I know He will not let me stay lost, He will search for me and find me.

But I also know that sitting in my puddle of anxiety about lost things is foolish.
After an entire weekend of agonizing over where my ID badge was, I finally stood up, marched to my bedroom, moved a pile of clothes, and found it there on the floor, all along. How much anxiety and fear I could have avoided if I had simply done the next thing. If I had simply looked for it. It reminds me of the words to an old hymn I used to plunk out on the piano, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus:"

Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer.

Though the Lord will pursue me and search for me, He also says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13).

It's time to quit worrying, quit fretting, and quit being afraid. It's time to lay aside my pride and my fear and come to Him. It's time to put in 100%, knowing that my God is able to do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine.

I am never enough. But He is everything. 
 

Content with drawing

I rarely miss a day of school, but this past week I was sick and had to be out a few times. I had left detailed sub plans and piles of things to do. State testing is approaching and the missing work board is full. Graphs and charts, research, reading responses, and science notecards are on my to-do list.

But not theirs.

When I returned, I had an incredible amount of paper scraps all over the floor. Marker stains on desks. My entire stack of scrap paper, which usually sits at a happy 3 inches, depleted. I looked around, searching for signs of completed assignments. I found most children now had two or three name tags (all very meticulously designed) taped all over their desks. Apparently, my artistic fourth graders preferred to draw over doing the extensions and extra practice assignments I had left for them.

When I returned, we got right back to work. Pushing into close reads of text, searching for evidence to back up their reasoning, writing about their reading. They moaned and groaned. They doodled all over their notebooks. Some even refused to do the assignments, gnawing on the backs of pencil erasers until the rubber was soggy and useless.

So we had a chat. About expectations. About laziness. About taking the easy way out. About settling for less than our very best.

But it's hard! They whined. But I just want to finish my drawing!

I am not anti-art. I am not anti-drawing, anti-creativity, anti-imagination. But I am anti-laziness.

As I sat perched on my chair, reminding them of expectations to work hard, regardless of who is in the room, of pushing themselves to be the best they can be, and to soak up knowledge instead of resist, I began to feel a knot of conviction in my heart. As if somehow I was also giving myself a little lecture. But I'm a hard worker! I'm not just cutting and pasting and drawing! I'm responsible, I told myself, and hoped the knot would go away.

It didn't.

Several hours later, sitting with a dear friend, I began to unravel that knot of conviction. What was it about what I told my class that bothered me... that made me feel as if I had been lecturing myself?
And then slowly I pulled the loose string that began to untie the cords that have bound my heart.

I have been content with the easy things and resisted the hard things. I have started to view my job as just a job. I've let teachable moments slide.
Because I'm spread so thin and I have so much to pack in that slowing time down for a child who's falling behind is hard.
Because it's easier to get frustrated and angry than to slow down and ask "why?"
Because it's easier to call someone out from across the room than to come close and lay a hand on their shoulder.

Because it's easier to just go through the motions, go through the minutes, and let moments of eternal impact slip away. Because "I don't have time for that right now."

Because it's easier to let the day happen than to make it count.

Today I pushed them hard. We read, we underlined, we explained, we wrote, we proved, we quoted. We rewrote, we fixed, we checked our spelling. And then the boy who rarely writes more than a sentence wrote a whole page. This boy who rarely ever writes to a prompt because he's too busy doodling his own imaginary world wrote a page. A page detailing the author's purpose of using figurative language in a tall tale, complete with examples from the text of onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors, and idioms.

And instead of just nodding my head in approval, I recognized a teachable moment. Because I, too, am always learning.

I recognized a moment where hard work paid off. And so after slowing down my march around the classroom long enough to point out the excellent things I noticed in his writing, I slowed down time some more. He stood up and shared it with the class. He got two rounds of applause, and twenty one hands in the air eager to share what he did well. He looked as if his chest would burst with pride. Because what he had done had taken work. It had taken perseverance and thought. And he had a final product to show. I know he will remember that moment for a long time. Because it took a tremendous effort, and he yet he prevailed.

It takes work, real work, to teach a class of twenty-two kids for eight hours a day. It takes perseverance to keep pushing them to be excellent even when I am tired. When it would be easier to give them a stack of paper and just say "have at it; color all you like!"

And it takes real work to truly invest in them as people. To make a day count. To slow down to listen, to notice a tear, to ask "why," to let them invade my lunch time, and to take time -- to make time to celebrate their victories, and encourage them to be better. To push them when they're not working their hardest, to let up when they're at their breaking point. To know them and love them deeply, even when I'm tired. To be present.

The cords of my heart have been cut loose. The prayers I used to pray with my mom and my brother each day before heading off to school are echoing in my mind...

Help us build into Your Kingdom. Make today count for eternity.