Hey, remember this post? Well, you don't really have to because I posted it a while ago and the events of it occurred oh, 4+ months ago. But, I'm catching up because what I'm about to tell you happened only 2 months ago. I also posted some happenings from more recent weeks already so apologies for going out of order.
Well, in case you don't remember (and since I don't expect you to) here is a re-cap: I was mentally and professionally ready to leave the team where I work at my current job and hoping to transfer to work with younger students in a different setting at my same school. I expected this transfer but was anticipating it too much and not appreciating the time I had left. I came to realize that I was "not done yet" and that I had more to do with my students with the time I had left. Little did I know. Due to staffing, it was revealed to me about 2 months ago that I would stay with my same students for this next year. This was a bit unexpected. Now, not only was I "not done yet," I was really not done yet- not for another year.
I had expected this coming year, my final year, to be another learning year. My three years out on the East Coast have not been so much about giving in terms of education. They have been more about learning so I will be better equipped to give back when I leave. But because I work in such a rich setting with so many resources my presence is not especially vital. Students would be getting relatively the same quality of education whether I am there or not. Whereas, kids in a public school back in the midwest might go through their entire school career without being taught any form of communication would they could be completely capable of using some kind of picture communication system if they didn't have teachers with ABA experience.
Between this distinction and prayer, I have always felt that this was more of a learning time. But, when I found out my third year would be the same as the last two I thought that perhaps this would be more of a giving year- what else could I learn?
Well, working in the program I work in is something that people have difficulty making it through a year of (let alone 3) especially as a teacher on the floor with students. It's a little different if you move up to different positions/have better hours (although that is still an incredibly hard an thankless job that you couldn't pay me to do and I respect all my supervisors for doing it). So one year is hard enough for some, two years in my placement is tough- people almost never make it through three full years in the placement where I work as a direct care teacher, let alone sign up for it.
Don't get me wrong, I have the best job in the world but that saying you've heard of for teaching jobs applies more than ever at my job: "it's the toughest job you'll ever love." The sad part is that because of the tough aspect, you can only do what you love for so long. And I do need to realize that my time doing this amazing work is fleeting and given the ministry call I keep feeling, my time working with the best kind of people on the planet (special needs children) may be limited, even if I don't really want it to be (I'm still not sure on this, so don't hold me to it, but let me tell you- these 70 weeks of prayer have seen some Ca-razy changes). Given all that, I need to appreciate this while I have it.
But I digress. Let's get back to the story: when I had thought I might leave my placement for a new one I felt like a quitter. I had grown exhausted of trying to love people and persevere in love and tolerance and to fight to improve the things that frustrated me without being hurtful or harmful. So to just leave (even if it also was for professional reasons) felt like I was letting the darkness win. I couldn't love properly, I couldn't work for what was right, I couldn't be the person I wanted to be at work, so I should just leave? And besides, my students are the world to me- one random year working in a different area would feel like a fluke. So, in some ways, when I heard the news that I was staying, it felt right. Still incredibly daunting, but right. And then I realized, while this was a giving year, it was most definitely a learning year. Maybe less growing professionally and more spiritually. This year would be a lesson in endurance and perseverance in love and all the actions that it entails. When I had prayed about what to do this year professionally and when it came down to asking God about my next placement I had asked him to put me where I would grow most into the person I needed to be to do His work, especially when I left here. I had thought that meant doing early intervention work with younger students but God obviously has other plans. And I can only believe that my staying in this placement was an answer to my prayer, especially considering what I will be returning to when I go back home. Leaving here I will face trying to love my mother in her rough medical state, trying to love people who will hate the kind of work I will do, and will be trying to persevere to be effective for my students in an environment with limited resources. Did I think God was just going to toss me into that unprepared?
Well, I must have thought that if I thought He was going to let me get away with running away from trying to persevere and endure in love and just drop things when they got hard. But, He didn't. And as I begin to work into this year, with some added changes to make my life a little more sane and to allow myself to actually have time to teach and spend quality time with my students again, I begin to fall in step. I remember again why I do this and I begin to feel the beginning of love for people I could not have loved before. But, I am gaining the wisdom to recognize none of that is because of me- it is simply by Grace that I can even begin to endure in love. Although, I must work every day to accept it and to live it out.
So now, months after grappling with this news, I get up and go to work daily and feel like a new woman. My co-workers say it's because my schedule changed and because I have less responsibility. Well, that accounts for the lightness I feel, but the feeling like a "new woman?" There's only One who can do something as dynamic and amazing as that.
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