From November 6 until Thanksgiving, I'll be posting everyday, talking about someone or something I'm grateful for. I invite you to participate along with me. If you have a blog and will be participating, send me the link and I'll link back here. If you don't have a blog and there is a blessing you want to talk about, email me and I'll post it along with my daily blessing. I can even post it anonymously, if you'd prefer. There's something very powerful about focusing on what's right in our lives, and I intend to live this way, walking on the path of gratitude.
Day Twelve:
As crazy as this may sound, I'm really grateful that I get to attend college. A friend was telling me recently about a program where you can donate your used textbooks and they send them to Middle Eastern women who aren't allowed to attend school. It made me realize how blessed I am. Sitting in my classrooms, listening to professors, I look around and think how amazing it is that I'm there, not only to be able to attend and learn, but to have a grant that covers a lot of my expenses and to have dependable childcare. I'm grateful that I attend a university where I feel like my professors have a vested interest in me, not only as a student, but as a human being, where they really care about my success in their class. And even though sometimes I complain and stress about the workload in those classes, I know that it's for the best, that this work is molding me into the teacher my students need me to be.
The truth is, I love learning new stuff. I'm kind of a nerd that way. And I love to teach what I've learned. My Mom said awhile back that my face changes when I'm teaching something. I've had people pray over me and tell me it's my destiny to teach, that it's what I was made to do. And I really believe it, not just because they said so, but because I feel it in my core being. There have been a few experiences this last semester that have left me wondering if I'm cut out for it, if I'm strong enough, made me question my ability to deal with all the stuff that comes along with teaching: the politics, the standardized testing, the expectations of parents, the demands of the administration, the struggle of supporting multiple intelligences and languages in one classroom. But I suppose that anything worth having and doing is going to require work and a lot of it.
I feel like I owe it to myself to finish college and to teach. I owe it to my family who have been so supportive throughout my (many) years in school. I owe it to Miss A and her future siblings to not give up, to show them that it's possible to do something even if it's really hard. I owe it to my future students to learn all I can and become the teacher they need me to be. Though the process is hard, I'm grateful to even have the opportunity, the financing, the time, the support. It's no small thing to be in this position. It's a "for such a time as this" moment in my life.
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