Teacher’s Meditations: It’s Your Life and Your Career
You were gifted this life by the Creator. It is yours to do with whatever you please. You can choose good or bad. You have the option to choose life or death. You are able to decide what you do and what you accomplish. It is even your option to decide to spend this gift that belongs to you, doing absolutely nothing. You are the only one who can decide to be happy, to be successful, to remain depressed, or to be a failure. You are in charge of being the victim or the victor.
In this recession, everyone is concerned about job security and cutbacks. There are teacher’s with master’s degrees in education standing in lines to work any job in a hotel. It is a blessing to be able to get up every morning, walk into the doors of a school building, be in a position to influence and motivate our youth, and take home a check at the end of the pay period to feed own babies. We are blessed. God gave us the opportunity to be a positive influence on his children, ours and others. He gave us the opportunity to instill skills necessary for young people to become successful and productive members of society to us, in our hands.
Some of these young people will appreciate your work now; while others won’t appreciate it until they look back on this time years from now. Know that you are touching the lives of others forever; therefore; SMILE and be pleased with yourself. Proverbs 22: 6 says, “Train them up in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it.” Only God knows what will happen in their lives in between that time. They will have your words of encouragement always whispering in their ears coupled with the skills, morals, and values they learn both at home and inside the school’s walls. The lessons our students learn about life will be lessons well learned, lessons to pass to their children. I challenge you to touch them while you can and give them positive and constructive experiences and words while you have them in your earshot.
I further challenge you to choose your ‘personals’ well, to live your life to its fullest, to use your gift as a valuable tool for inspiring and helping others. I challenge you to choose confidence over self doubt. I invite you to choose optimism over worry. I encourage you to choose enthusiasm over anxiety. Use your tongue to speak life to yourself and others. Move into the mainstream of life. Know what you want out of life and go for it. Give up loneliness and build great new healthy relationships. Get out of the rut of a boring and stressful things in which you may be involved and lauch a promising new skill or hobby for yourself. Take care of yourself, inside and out, and go through the steps to look as good as you feel.
“…for my heart REJOICED in all my labour and this was my portion of all my labour. Ecclesiastes 2:10″
If you haven’t reached it already, as you develop experience, skill, and knowledge in touching the lives of your students, you will reach the place where the fruits of your labors are sheer joy. You will come to find joy despite the challenges and tumult of the profession. Make God glad that he gave you both your job as well as the great gift of life!
