"Do You Have Any Teaching Stories?"

Yes.  So.  So many.

(Disclaimer: It has been one of the longest weeks of my life with a lot of built in time for driving and being awake late into the night.  This blog is all over the place, probably doesn't use the best wording, and is very opinionated/soul-search-y/Jesus-y.)

A gentleman who I go to church with, and who has really been a support in my life from the time I was very young, asked me this question the other day.  I started answering with an "Ummmmmm."  The men in the group thought it was because I was trying to come up with one.  After a few minutes they realized that I was trying to narrow the selection down.

The last three weeks have been a trial.  My students have been testing, and I've had yearbook issue after yearbook issue, not to mention stresses outside of school. It's been a long time since I've been this stressed.  We're talking dreaming about yearbook, waking up in cold sweats because my list of things I have to do is longer than most of the stories my students have to read in my class, and those were the days I slept.  I realized how high my stress level was and started taking a hard look at my life.

That's when I realized-- I'm at THAT stage.  I won't generally be getting into my relationship with Christ on my blog, as I generally believe the personal side of that needs to be... well, personal.  At this point in my life, however, accountability in all facets of my life is kind of a big deal.  Therefore, I'm gonna get real about Jesus in my life for a second.

I started thinking about the times in my life when I had more going on in my life than I currently do and how I was much happier in those times.  I started thinking about my next to last semester of college when my grandpa was sick, I was supposed to be starting my internship, and I was traveling to Oklahoma City every weekend instead of working and making money, which was making it difficult to be paying some of my bills for the first time-- and how I was still more at peace than I am now.  I noticed one important difference.  At the time, I was reading my Bible through.

Pause.  Rewind to the summer of 2012.  Let's take a second to get some perspective on me and my views of Super Summer.  I am anti-Super Summer.  I guess that's kind of ridiculous, considering I've never been.  I do, however, have my reasons.  Growing up as a church kid, with all the opportunities and responsibilities a church kid had, didn't quite impact my life the way it should've.  I hadn't gotten deep into my faith.  I gave Sunday School answers with the best of them, and it was rare, if ever, that I lived my salvation outside of church.  This isn't to say that I was a bad kid or made bad decisions, it's saying I made the right decisions for the wrong reasons.  Back to Super Summer.  My opinion of Super Summer comes purely from the fact that I was a student who acted how I was supposed to.  I became a (sort of) leader BECAUSE I WAS SUPPOSED TO.  That's what I see in a lot of Super Summer attendees.  Again, not all.  This is a generality.  I know some of you looooove Super Summer and had great experiences there and I'm not trying to discount them.  I'm just throwing this out there from the point of view of someone who specialized in going through the motions.

HOWEVER.

Super Summer challenged me, and I didn't even go.  One of my good friends (one of those few who truly went completely for the growth she got) came back that summer with a challenge for the whole church.  She asked us if we'd ever read The Bible.  The whole thing.  How could we believe in or defend something we HADN'T EVEN READ?  This spoke to me on an English Major level.  I wouldn't go around recommending a novel I hadn't read, so how was I supposed to recomend Christianity if I hadn't read the text God WROTE?

So I read.  And I stopped reading for a while.  And I'd read again.  And repeat. I wanted that "read it in a year" title, though.  So I got it.  I caught up and read it in a year.  That's what got me through my senior year of college when my grandpa passed, and one of my instructors made me rewrite a unit plan the week before I graduated and wasn't even in town, and I had to present research, like, in front of people, and on and on the list goes of things Jesus alone got me through.

Then, I got lazy.  The stages of getting lazy with my relationship with Jesus are as follows- Be completely devoted to the relationship and wonder why I ever thought this might be hard work. Be lazy for a short period of time.  Be conscious of it and think to yourself "It's only gonna last a few days" (and be wrong).  Be lazy for a few weeks and think "I'll get back to it soon.  Like, on the first, so it's a nice, round day for your little obsessive mind to handle" (and be wrong, again).  Be lazy for months and think "I would start it up again, but I'm so tired and I've got so much going on" (Get over yourself.  So does God.  He's GOD.)  Watch your entire life stress you out for weeks and weeks knowing exactly what would fix this (AKA your bestie, the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE).  Finally stop being an idiot and start talking to said bestie about your life probs.  Cause He cares.  And then.  Crazy thought.  You decide "Hey.  I like talking to Him so much that I might take a second and listen to what He has to say" and READ YOUR BIBLE.  Can you tell I'm a little annoyed at how many times I've seen this process go down?

I don't know why I expect my relationship with God to be flowers and rainbows and all happiness all the time.  No relationship is like that, not even our relationship with God.  This has nothing to do with God.  It's all about our selfishness and sinfulness.  I guess I expect this because people kind of avoid the conversation about how hard it can be, or, at least, that's how it is in my experience.  People will say "Your life won't be perfect or easier because God's in it," but the idea that at times a relationship with God can require work just like any other relationship worth having seems to get pushed to the side because people don't want to scare people off.  We want to talk about all the positives.  We hear a lot of "Living like Christ can be hard," and "Being committed to your quiet time can be hard," which both imply that a relationship with God is hard... but how many times have we heard it said that actually BEING in a relationship with God is just as hard as maintaining earthly friendships and relationships?  How many times do we hear that we're probably going to get frustrated with God because it is our nature to be frustrated with anything, including ourselves, at some point or another?  We need to be a little more open with the fact that sometimes being the friend and child of an all-knowing entity is kind of intimidating.  We don't feel good enough-- we aren't and don't have to be.  There are times when we feel inferior to many people who are close to us.  We get frustrated with God's timing, then we feel guilty that we're annoyed-- again, normal for humans to be selfishly annoyed with anything not going our way.  We also get frustrated when our friends and loved ones won't make decisions that impact us.  We are occasionally selfish and indulgent with where we'd rather spend our time-- not really okay, but a fact of life.  This is like ditching your parents.  At the time you think you're so cool for ditching them, but, in the end, you really wanted to see that movie or just spend time with them.  The common denominator is that the majority of the people in your daily life whom you treat the same way as God still love you, especially after you apologize and try to make it right.  So why would God, who created you, love you any less, especially after an apology and an attempt to fix your life before Him?

And this is what I need to get through my stubborn, not good enough, self-indulgent and frustrated skull.  I don't know what I'm talking about because I am not in charge.  I don't get to call the shots in my life no matter how much I like yelling "I do what I want."  I am not orchestrating the entirety of everything, ever, so it's not up to me to fix everything or be perfect.  It's up to me to let myself be changed for the better and realize that my life will do what it's supposed to in spite of me and my mistakes, stubbornness, failures, indulgences, and frustrations.

So I decided to pick up the read through your Bible thing again.  This time we're going chronologically rather than canonically, so we'll see how it goes.  I mean, as far as positivity goes, we're already improving.  Yay team.  Also, in case you can't tell, this is a self-accountability blog.  For myself.

Also, I ate carbs for three days last week (goodbye thirty-two day streak of not eating chips) (I just couldn't say no to the sea salt and vinegar Pringles.  I mean, honestly) (... And then also one quarter of a taco salad shell).  I hate myself for it.  I woke up feeling so awful and groggy on the fourth day.  This carb shenanigans has to stop.

Student Section-
"He was like... two midgets taller than me."
"When did we start using midgets as a unit of measurement?"