The Green Fig Tree

Where I’ve Been Hiding for the Past Year

Many of you know (and some of you may not) that for the 2010-2011 school year, I taught high school English at a local Christian school.  This was after spending the 2009-2010 school year taking alternative certification classes, spending hours job searching online and attending multiple job fairs in which I was one of thousands searching for a teaching job.  HCA was the only school to call me for an interview, and upon walking in the doors, I knew I would get the job.  I was very aware at that moment that God wanted me to teach at HCA.  I was really excited to be a teacher.

However, as the past year drew to a close and I looked back on it, I was really struggling with what God wanted me to do next.  I was miserable teaching.  I felt like I gave 110% of myself, but was only getting about 85% return.  I worked constantly, from 6:30 or 7:00am until 5:30 or 6:00pm at the school, and then went home and worked more until I was too tired to stay awake.  Even with all the working, I could not stay caught up with lesson plans for four separate classes, and grading all of the assignments that were turned in.  The biggest problem, though, was the fact that I, for the most part, had to completely ignore both Sophia and Andy in order to get things done.  Our house started to look like a war zone because I was focused on work and could not keep up with the housework.  I rarely made dinner, and we ate out at restaurants or fast food almost every night.  I was both physically and mentally exhausted, and I didn’t know how to make up the time I was losing.

Finally, when I talked to my principal about my struggles, she told me that sometimes a person has to make sacrifices in order to fulfill a dream.  It was then that it dawned on me that teaching was never really my dream, and that when I started the journey toward teaching almost two years ago, it was just a means toward my real dream, to be a librarian.  However, in the course of those two years, I had so effectively thrown myself into teaching, I had forgotten the whole purpose of doing it in the first place.  In the State of Texas, in order to become a public school librarian, one must teach as a certified teacher for two years.  Though I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be a school librarian or a public librarian, or some other sort of librarian, it seemed that going the public school route would open the most doors.  So, I chose that option, and because of that decision, set myself on the path to teach for (at least) two years.  My real dream, and the one I have always felt that God was leading me to, is to be a librarian.  I hate to say that I wasted my time or sacrificed for nothing, because I believe that God puts people in every situation for a purpose, and I had been at HCA for a reason, but it wasn’t to further the goal of librarian.  I had told God “thanks for the directions” and then wrested the map out of His hands, attempting to navigate on my own, though I can’t read the language it is written in.

So, starting this fall, I am again a stay-at-home-mom and full time Library Science student in the master’s program at UNT.  I am loving it so far, and though I don’t know where my MS will lead me, I am comfortable now not having a final plan.  That is something I have had to come to terms with, acknowledging that God knows where this will lead, but I don’t and that’s okay.  If you know anything about me, you know I don’t do “wait and see” very well.  Proverbs 16:9 says “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.”  Well, I have always been heavy on the first half, and light on the second.  I have always had a five-year-plan, even if it is changing because I have changed my mind.  As I look back on all the changes and the bouncing from one idea to the next, I have realized it has always been because God has given me the signs on which direction to take, and from those small signs I plan out the rest of my life, assuming the road will be straight.  Then I realize I missed the next sign and my next turn is miles behind me.  Finally, I think I understand what it means to really let God lead, and to give Him total control.