Another thing that I have been pondering this week is all of
the paradoxes I have been experiencing in my time here.
Firstly, it’s so hard and I feel so drained so much of the
time, and yet I am loving my time here. I’m so challenged here and it’s
difficult knowing I’m being evaluated a lot of the time in something I’m
obviously not going to be the best at since it takes years to become a highly
effective teacher. Having that constant pressure is not something that I’m very
used to or good at handling in all honesty (good thing I ruled out being a
surgeon or ER doctor, huh? ;) ). But on the flip side, I love being here. I’m
learning and growing a ton and it’s exciting to feel like I’m really doing
something again. It’s exciting to feel that growth. I’m loving my interactions
with students, even on days when I have to constantly remind them to focus for
one more minute and on days when they are so bored or really don’t care about
what we have to tell them today. I love the people I work with and they have
been such an encouragement in my life, even without knowing all of the
different struggles that I face or have faced before. It takes a lot out of me
and I get frustrated and challenged by things that are different in the DR that
only add to the stresses of student teaching, but I haven’t felt this healthy
or this whole in a very, very long time, and I am completely surrounded by the beauty
of the mountains. For these reasons and many more, I am so happy to be here.
Secondly is the paradox that is probably most difficult to
explain and sort of related to the first. It is the paradox of days where
really good things happen and my mind and heart are still in a raging battle
against negativity and days where I don’t feel like everything was put together
and yet somehow find that genuine joy comes easily. Some of my days here are
hard and some are better, but most days, in all honesty, have dramatic elements
of both of those things. An example of this would be the day that I first took
over Geometry. I was so nervous about this class and thought that it was going
to go very poorly but it actually went really well. And then my Algebra review
went really well. So I went into lunch with a really great feeling. And then in
all of my planning time I was so caught up with details and this and that and
found myself really behind in my lesson planning and started to get really
nervous about that and have been behind all week since. So all week I have felt
really great after a lesson gone well and then dramatically overcome with
stress about my lesson planning. It is a strange situation. Days themselves are
not usually just good or just bad days anymore. They are usually fully both of
those things. Although, as I said in the first paradox, overall I am still so
glad that I am here and even the bad is good in a way.
Thirdly and perhaps the paradox most present to me at this
time, I have been experiencing this strange dichotomy where I am so happy to be
here and yet miss home so much. I haven’t once regretted my decision to come
here, and I have had such an incredible time thus far and am excited to keep
growing. But once again, my time away from home is a blatant reminder of all of
the people that I care so much about. I begin to miss people that maybe I’m not
even great at keeping in touch with when I am home. I begin to miss places and
things that I never even gave much thought to before. I have been missing so
much the signs of fall in my time here. I didn’t even know that was possible
for me. Fall has always been my very least season, yes, even more so than
winter. In most of my gradeschool years I experienced a great depression that
came with the signs of fall. But now that I have worked through much of that, I
crave the leaves crunching below my feet and the brisk air and the pumpkin pie
and the warm lattes shared between friends that bring life to the whole body
and the busy apple orchards and the fall activities at Hope. I miss all of my friends and family-I miss
reconnecting with friends not seen over the summer and spending lat nights
studying with friends in my class and weekends spent at home in the company of
my parents and my sisters, going on walks with them through the park and
looking for any remaining surprise plants to pop and going out to dinner as the
sun sets sooner and going for one last icecream cone and snuggling under one of
my Mom’s amazing afghans that somehow still fit over all of us across both
couches and keep us really warm despite all of the holes in an afghan to watch
a chick flick over a cup of hot tea or hot cocoa. My time here so far has
reminded me to never once take for granted a moment that is shared with someone
else and to not once pass up an opportunity to have those moments when they
present themselves and to not allow the busyness of life to get in the way of a
good conversation with a good friend for too long. I’m so happy to be here and
share good times with the people God has brought to my life in this season, but
I also miss my gente (my people) from home so much. These are tough desires to
reconcile for me-my desire to travel and be here and experience all of the
learning and growth that I experience here, and my love for my family and
friends and church home, the sense of security and peace and comfort that I
find there and the precious time spent with those that I love.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in your weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more
gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why,
for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in
persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2
Corinthians 12:9-10
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