closing of another chapter...

for a teacher that is.

those of you not familiar with the life of a teacher, you might be thinking...

you only have 7 days left of school, then summer. life for a teacher is so easy. you work for 9 months, get the summer off. you get all the holidays and breaks.

riddle me this...

Do you others out there after nine months of working 8 hours in the same room with someone just have to shut the door and move on? Do you take pride of other peoples success so much that sometimes your heart literally hurts? Do you hurt when YOUR coworkers hurt? Do you cry when YOUR coworkers cry?

For teachers...our coworkers..are our students my children. We spend 9 months, 8 hours a day, in one room within inches of each other. We spend more time together than we do our own families...

Now, do not get me wrong...I am not down playing any profession out there. I am simply saying that as teachers we make room in our hearts for 20 something little souls that we nourish with knowledge and work hard everyday to inspire, motivate, and educate. I dont know about you, but thats a lot of pressure...

Here's what I do know...

this is my favorite time of the year. I have these little minds that have done SO much and never cease to amaze day in and day out. I see so much maturity and learning in them and it gives me so much joy to know that I had a part in that. Bad days? Yes, everyone has them. But the good days...they always outweigh the bad.

I have to share this story with you...

Last week, my class and I were talking about poetry. We had been using the Close Reading steps to analyze the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. While opening our room to another school and teachers observing, I was simply having a conversation with a young boy about his thinking. His thinking was so incredibly deep and elaborate...that right there...sitting on the floor..with other adults watching in...i cried. i literally sat there on the floor and cried in front of him... for that was the BEST thinking he had ever shared. he did it. he got it and made my heart so happy i couldnt contain the tears.

that is was teaching is all about.

so here you have it. 7 6.5 days left and i am going to use them to the fullest potential. i am going to hug on everyone of my kids. share secrets with them. laugh with them. let them work with others. and spend as much time as i can with them. For they are my fourth class that I have raised and I will send them on to fifth grade knowing I did everything in my power to make them great. and then...I will cry. The last day of school will come, I will walk them to their busses and I will cry as they wave goodbye.

I am blessed that I have been able to build incredible relationships with my students in all my years teaching and I love and will miss each and everyone of them in their own little ways.

so here's to making the most of these last few days...it's not over yet.

Make the most of everything you've got...

fair vs just

life's lessons.

it is truly amazing that on the shady side of my 20s; i continue to learn a life lesson each day. some, much bigger than others.

lately, i have feeling {blah}. the weather here has been ridiculous, spring has still not arrived, so many changes are happening around me, and well if i want to be real with myself...since 2011 this time of year just seems harder than others.

i think back to May 1st of 2011...and i was feeling so much numbness. i was getting ready to embark on the one month date of losing my brother. honestly, i wish i could go back to that. i was still so naive is the grieving point, that it seemed much easier. i spend so much time of each day just thinking about my brother and all the things we did. some days, yes better than others. and other days are just plain crappy.

tonight, i went to my parents for our first golf meeting for our upcoming tournament. it was truly amazing the joy that planning this tournament brings to me. it is me...talking about doing things in my brothers name..perfect and honorably. i feel so proud. to think of it, i think its my way of continuing my role of that older, protective, stubborn sister.

but it seems like on that crappy days, i think that sometimes life isnt fair. i think we can all agree that at some point or another we have all thought "my life just isn't fair"

....and you know what? it's not. and God isn't fair either.

driving home tonight, i heard the best explanation of fairness.

"life just isn't fair..."

Fair means accordance with rules or standards. Would you really want God to treat you according to your sins? He is a JUST God. A God who will reward us based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair...He will not treat us towards our sins because He is just. Not fair, but just. If He sees we are trying to fight it, He will plan accordingly. If we so happen to fall and get tangled into it, we must remember to repent. God is just.  

So, in fact God is Just which is more than fair. His grace is far beyond anything we could deserve. God is generous, full of grade, full of mercy, loving us even though we don't deserve it. 

this gave me a great reminder that although sometimes i can feel like life is not fair...i must remember that God is JUST and although fair sounds great...
             i'd take JUST over fair any day.

happy wednesday.