Just about a month ago, some changes at my kids’ school (www.traceacademy.org) shook things up. After just one week of school we lost a family that had committed to teaching, and so that left one of our classes without a teacher, and one of our very small classes even smaller as one of the kids in the departing family was in that class. After many, many hours of meetings, the board and management of the school decided to keep that tiny class intact, move one of its teachers to the vacated position, and try to find another teacher for our tiny second grade.

Well, after much prayer, I volunteered to teach those three second graders–one of whom is my daughter, Morgan. I figured, there’s only three of them, I have three kids myself, how hard could it be? 🙂

Now, a month into it, I feel OK. I’m not a teacher by gifting, but have come to the conclusion that God gives gifts for a season, and this just might be that season.

So, here I am, teaching second grade. I have a lot to learn. But I think it’s going well. I’m looking forward to getting them more into writing stuff and having fun brainstorming ideas for some of our upcoming units.

This is my class going ice skating on a field trip in our Olympics unit.

I have been letting my creative side take too much of a vacation the past several years–you could even say I’ve been a lazy mom. Let the teachers be the creative ones. At home they tend to just do their own thing instead of having some creative fun time. It’s good for them to use their own imaginations, but I could be  a little more involved. I’m hoping this job will help me tap that part of myself a little bit more.

Here's our class learning about shadows

The hardest part is the classroom management. There are so few of them, it’s easy to let them get away with talking or getting out of their seats. But I’m not doing them any favors letting them get away with that, because they’re not going to be allowed to do that as they go on.

To top things off, this week, my lead teacher’s mother passed away in Nebraska. She’ll be gone all next week, when we were supposed to be doing parent/teacher conferences. Oh well, God is in control. Conferences will be rescheduled, report cards will eventually come out, and we’ll work our way through this year. All with God’s help.

There’s a scene in the movie “Runaway Bride” where Julia Roberts, as the lead character, tries to figure out who she is. She has run out on something like five weddings before meeting the man who is her reflection, the one who will complete her. But she runs out on him, too. In this scene, she places before herself three or four plates of eggs cooked in different ways: poached, scrambled, fried, Benedict. Before, with all her other fiancés, she’s sort of morphed into what they want her to be or maybe what they expect her to be. Now, knowing she’s really got to figure out who she is, she starts with the eggs. How does SHE really like them? I don’t remember what the answer is, but that’s not the important part. The important part is that she figures out what it is she likes, who it is she wants to be. Then she can go to her man, plan a wedding the way SHE wants it to be, and start a life with him as herself, not some facsimile of someone else.

That’s what I’ve got to figure out. For years and years and years I’ve known myself as a writer, but for years and years, I’ve barely written. Can one still be a writer if one is not writing?

For all of my adult life, I’ve been a church member, one not satisfied to just sit and soak in, but compelled to be a part of the work God is doing through the Body of Christ. I’ve sung in choirs, small ensembles and worship teams; I’ve helped write dramas and plan services; I’ve been an active part of the church community. People know with what church I’m involved. It’s obvious by the work that I do there.

For almost 20 years, I’ve been a wife. That part is obvious too: I live with my man, I wear a ring on my left hand, I sleep in the same bed, I’m committed with all my life. I’m a wife.

For nearly 14 years, I’ve been a mom. Again, something obvious. I’ve got the responsibility to clothe, feed, teach and love three little people (OK, some aren’t so little anymore.) I bore them, I birthed them, I fed them from my own body. I discipline them, I read with them, I look out for their best interests, I try to instill godly values into them. I am a mom.

For 35 years, I’ve wanted to be a writer. For 10 years, I was just that, full time, as a part of the writing team for Worldwide Challenge magazine (http://www.worldwidechallenge.org/). Then, I became a mom. Where did the writer go? Did she disappear into the recesses of life when babies came to the forefront? I know women who keep writing as they mother; why can’t I seem to do the same thing? Where is my muse? Come out, come out, wherever you are!

By God’s grace I, unlike the Julia Roberts character, have not run away from my other selves, the wife, the mom, the church member, the teacher; but somewhere along the way, I have sort of lost who it is that I really am. What puts a “fire in my belly?” As I was asked at a retreat this weekend. What do I love to do so much that I lose track of time when I’m doing it? What situations get me excited or motivated to keep working and pressing forward? What do I long for, dream about and desire to see happen?
Hopefully, those are some of the things I’m going to discover as I write this blog. What am I compelled to do? What can I not live without? What, if I didn’t do it, would cause me to die inside? I hope you’ll come with me as I strive to find out, and maybe you can learn a little about yourself along the way.

I’ve decided I’m not much of a thinker. I’m more of a talker. And a writer. What comes out of my keyboard or my mouth is mostly unfiltered, except for socially acceptable morés. I haven’t always thought through everything I’m saying or writing. That’s why I need other people around me. I work at my kids’ school with a couple of “thinkers.” I depend on them to come up with the stuff to which I say, “Oh, I never thought of that!” I have to make myself think sometimes. I sit still, waiting for quiet (which in a household with three kids, a dog and a cat, quiet doesn’t come very often), trying to come up with profound thoughts. Rarely happens. I’ve learned not to shoot off e-mails without rereading them or running them by someone else first. Phone conversations are hard for me, because there’s no taking back what I just said, which I hadn’t had time to think through. I work better with a script.

So, if I’m talking to you, and I say something you think is a little off–or a lot off–feel free to ask me, “Are you sure that’s what you really think?” I won’t be offended, I promise. At least I think I won’t be.