My Mom

This weekend I had the best time ever with my mom. J.R. was out of town. So my mom and I spent Saturday together. I must admit we don't do this nearly enough. We found out about this spa that had an incredible grand opening sale. So we splurged. We spent 2 hours getting manicures and pedicures done. It was so fantastic. We had a nice lunch together and then we went shopping. Neither of us are big shoppers and its rare that either of us are in any mood to do much shopping. However, Saturday we were. Unfortunately, neither of us had a whole lot of money to do much shopping.

We realized later that we did things a little backwards. We should have gotten the manicures and pedicures after our shopping trip. But oh well. Live and learn. I just enjoyed spending the day with my mom. She is such an incredible person and I am so thankful to not only be able to call her mom but one of my best friends.

A New Path?

Over the past few months, my pastor has had different people in the church teach lessons on Wednesday night services. I somehow was volunteered to do so. Just great. I wasn't too fearful as I was towards the end of a very long list of people that were volunteered just like myself. (Basically, my pastor went through a meeting and said you and you and you and you.) Imagine my surprise when I found out I was teaching Ch. 19. Ch. 19!! Are you kidding me? There were 30-40 people on that list. How on earth did I wind up at Ch. 19!

So last night was my turn to teach. I'm not ashamed to tell you I was flipping out. I was so scared of getting up in front of 100+ adults and teaching them anything. Who am I to teach all these adults anything? I still feel like a kid half the time. I was shaking from all the adrenaline (and am shaking even now as I think back). I was given the chapter I was to teach almost two months ago. So I had plenty of time to prepare. But if you've learned anything about me, you know I'm a procrastinator big time. I did read it that first time, I cried. This chapter was meant for me. God was the one that moved me to this spot in the list. I was meant to teach this chapter. Knowing this, however, did not calm my fears.

Last week I began my preparation and took a few minutes to read through it again and look up some scriptures. Then a few days ago I began making notes for myself on what I wanted to talk about and verses I wanted to read to go along with the teaching. I am so glad I was able to take yesterday off. I was able to spend most of the day reading through and familiarizing myself even more with my lesson. I also prayed and prayed and prayed. My mom and I were in constant communication as I kept asking her if everything looked good. She assured me it looked great.

The time finally came for me to teach. I was shaking. This was made very obvious by the fact that I had to hold a microphone, something I completely despise. I started off in a jumble of words. I noticed my parents mouthing to me "slow down." So I took a deep breath and slowed down. From that point on things went fantastic (except when the mic died and I had to wait for them to find a replacement, but I maintained my composure.) There was one point in the lesson that spoke about Sarah believing in the promise of God to give her a child. I had to stop for a minute to compose myself as I began to cry. At that point, my pastor said, "This is why you were supposed to teach this." I nodded in agreement.

After a few minutes, I relaxed and got into a flow. I know that God's anointing was on me because there is no way I could have done so well on my own. I must admit I rocked. I had many many people come up to me and J.R. after the service telling me what a great job I did. One lady told me that she hadn't been too excited about going on Wednesday nights anymore because she wasn't being fed. However, she was having a difficult time getting her daughter to go to youth. So she felt guilty about making her daughter go and then going grocery shopping instead. So she decided to stay. She told me thank you so much, you fed me tonight. That meant so much to me that my teaching had touched someone.

My pastor came up to me later and told me what a great job I did. I admit I was very nervous about his reaction. There have been a few people that have done a poor job and he has not made his disappointment unknown to others. He said I did such a good job he wants me to teach on a Sunday morning. Yeah I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon. J.R. and my parents haven't stopped fawning over me and what a good job I did. While the appreciation is, well, appreciated I don't want to get a big head over all this. I'm trying to take all the praise in stride. My mom was amazed that I spoke with such authority. She wrote me an email today. She told me that I blew everyone away because I am such a quiet person yet when I got up there I spoke with such authority and confidence. She wants to get the CD of it so my brother can listen to it. I'll admit I won't be sad if I never listen to it.

So it was a success and I'm still flying high from the experience. I've always known I was created to be a teacher (which is why with all the frustrations I face, I love my job). However, doing this I felt totally fulfilled. I feel like I am stepping into something new (and scary I might add) that God has in store for me. I'll admit I'm not exactly sure where this might take me but I'm excited to see what journey the Lord is going to take me on.

April Fool's

This morning I was approached by one of my fellow teachers. He asked if I would like to play an April Fool's joke on our seniors. Quite obviously I jumped at the chance to fool my students even if for a little while. He had come up with the idea that he would tell them he had resigned from the school. We even got the secretary involved.

At the beginning of class, our secretary brought over Mr. B's class. Immediately, all of the students were wondering what was going on. They began to ask question after question. I simply told them that I was going to let Mrs. D (our secretary) explain. Mr. B had left a letter to be read to the students. It basically said that circumstances came up and he was having to leave and that I would be teaching both classes (government AND economics) until there was a replacement. Mrs. D did such an incredible job. As she read the letter to the students she actually had tears in her eyes. It was fantastic. I had a hard time not busting out laughing.

As she left the class, I then had the time of trying to control these students and be as vauge as possible in answering their questions. I began my lecture for my economics class and had the government class start on their work. I must say they were all fairly perplexed. They continually said, "This has got to be a joke, they can't be serious." As I tried to get the government class to do their work, one girl in particular was having a hard time adjusting and processing the whole thing. She kept telling me that they had been working on debates. I calmly told her that I just found about this whole thing this morning and that I would figure things out as quickly as I could but that they would have to be patient in the mean time.

As my lecture in economics continued, Mr. B had placed a slide in there that was outlining the term "Fictism." I continued on like it was a real word and a real issue in economics. Then the last slide said, "April 1, 2008 Mr. B and Mrs. R play an April Fool's joke on the senior class." As this slide went up, Mr. B burst through the door. This was accompanied by very confused looks on our student's faces. His class then proceeded to throw paper balls at him. It was so funny. He then began reading off all the text messages he had received from the students. They were all so concerned about him. They had been texting him asking if everything was ok and whether or not this was some kind of a joke. What a fun way to start a day.