![Picture](/uploads/8/6/9/2/8692426/1378046670.png)
Near the conclusion of a discussion on “QUALITY” and the importance of doing high quality work and being high quality people, I asked the students, “So what? Why am I spending so much time discussing quality with you?” A young woman in the back said, “Because you love
us?”
The answer caught me off guard for a moment. Do I love my often-squirrely, often vulnerable, almost always pure-hearted OPA eighth graders? Yes I do. Yes, yes, I do. I teach, preach, and expect them to do quality work and be quality people because quality people succeed and success is what I want for them……because I love them. Good point Olivia!
School at Ogden Preparatory Academy is back in full swing. I taught Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, all day. This year, in an effort to meet our bills, I picked up another class; I teach every period without a break, doing all my preparation and correction work at home.
School…..gotta love it! Chick loves it. He is excited about his bio-aquaculture class where his task is to build a system that will keep fish alive and he loves his AP Literature class, even though he is currently failing it. (Oh my, here we go again!)
Tanah loves her AP European History class though doing homework for it has put bags under her eyes. Grace loves her keyboarding teacher (Mr. Hislop) but hates keyboarding. Miles loves Mrs. A. Smith (there are two Mrs. Smith fourth grade teachers and his is Mrs. A); Miles loves everything, except food that is good for him and folding socks. Lance had 60
potential athletes come out for his cross country team—which he loved—but does not haveany male runners who can run more than 5 minutes without stopping to walk—which he does not love.
Money…..gotta have it! Do money worries ever end? God has been so good to help us financially lately
A doctor wrote off a $330 bill for us
A sister sold us a car at an unbelievable price
A 2011 un-cashed bonus check showed up in the mail
I was offered a job to update the Earth Science Sci-ber text for USOE
Very generous friends who supported the kids’ 4H projects
but the bills keep coming and the account draining never stops….. We’ve reduced our phone bill, we have no car payments or furniture payments, we don’t have cable or satellite, I don’t buy junk food, and we don’t eat at restaurants. Yet money disappears from our account like ice water on a sizzling sidewalk and we still struggle to make ends meet. It is a constant concern now and the future looks even more painful. Chick will be on a mission in a year and soon colleges will want money to educate our children. Do money worries ever end?
It would help if I did not have to keep buying the girls underwear. Zorro has eaten three pair in the last two weeks.
How do I know? Zorro does not digest underwear; he just eats them. One pair he puked on my carpet, two pairs partially exited his anus. The girls swear they do not leave the underwear lying around. Zorro does not swear about anything…..but he certainly squeals when we have to pull the partially protruding garments the rest of the way out.
Squealing….singing….. Sometimes it seems the same. At our choir practice last Sunday the director said, “I hear a bass singing the melody. STOP NOW or I will come find you!” There are 350 people in the choir. How did she hear one bass?
Those of you who can hear music and sing notes have no idea how terrifying singing is to those of us who don’t. We really cannot hear when we are off key, off pitch, off scale, or whatever term it is that you music literate folks use. Singing
for us is like being blind and deaf at a busy intersection. We cannot read the signs that would give us direction and we cannot hear the cars that we sense are going to crash into us. What we can do (and what we do very well) is imagine how all the people who can read the signs and see the cars (i.e. musically adept people) are cringing and wincing as we bumble about, missing signs and stepping in front of cars. It is terrifying.
Yet we have been called to sing and our prayers about it have confirmed the call. Lance and Chick are terrified—TERRIFIED—but willing. This week they had personal voice lessons with Brother Duffin, a talented (and patient and kind) local music teacher. The experience left Lance’s back soaked in sweat, his knees quivering, and his heart a bit more peaceful. “You made great progress tonight,” Brother Duffin told them. There is hope…..!!!!!
There is hope. I was musing………actually stewing and worrying would be a better words……….about money and to-do lists and children and school as I drove down our street. As I passed each house I thought about its occupants and realized that they, too, have ingredients to make worry stew; one recently lost a son, another’s son is not living up to his potential, one family is facing the loss of their home and another neighbor battles chronic pain. All of us struggle…and all of us go forward. Why? Because there is hope….and love….and light.
Our faith in Christ brings us hope for a better tomorrow and confidence in His help with the struggles of today. We hear His love in the kind words spoken by a music teacher; we feel His love in the kiss of a cool breeze when standing on a sizzling sidewalk, and we see His love in the eyes of trusting students. His hope and love bring us light; it will be alright!!
Christ is my favorite teacher.
Life is good.
Teresa