One of those days

WARNING: This is long, I need to vent before I can sleep.

Do you ever have one of those days? I did today. It was like the day in the children's book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The day started off like any other, get ready for work, get out the door and head to school. As I was driving, listening to Lisa and Eric on K-Love as usual, they were talking about some list of the 200 best jobs to have. I kept wondering where teaching fell on the list and I thought about what I loved about my job. I can honestly say that I love my job. I love all (o.k, almost all) aspects of it. I think the thing I love the most is connecting with the kids and as they talked, I thought to myself, I may never know this side of heaven which kids I have impacted, but that was ok. I really do love my job. Then, I got to school...

It was not one thing that made the day bad, it was a multitude of small things that added up as the day went on to where I was counting the minutes till 3:15. First, my room was cold. My room recently is always cold. I am so tired of cold weather and having a classroom that I cannot keep warm. Then my first hour class had absolutely no interest in what we were talking about. Forget that I am trying to help them learn something that is semi-important. I mean, you do need to know about American history and the Civil War. After that, the downhill train was off and running. No class was particularly bad, it was just little aggravations that normally do not bother me, that today set me on edge.

Then came fourth period. Now, I am a stickler for the rules in the classroom. Its the only way to keep control and my students know that and have known it since day one. One of the HUGE no nos in my room is cell phones. Forget the fact that they are not supposed to have them at school to begin with. I took one up almost immediately for texting in class. About 30 minutes later, one boy has his out ON HIS DESK TEXTING!!! And you think I am not going to take your phone up as well?????? Hello, lets use some common sense here. So, I turn the phones over to the principal to deal with.

But, it keeps on heading down hill. My afternoon classes did not seem to remember, really none of my classes have, that we are no longer on Christmas vacation and that its time to get back into school. We are allowed to give homework and tests, it what we do as teachers! My students have no interest in being at school, are lazy, and generally seem to not care and that makes me mad. I work my tail off to prepare for them and they don't care.

So, I left everything on my desk in a true Scarlet O' Hara moment and said at 3:50 that it would all be there in the morning. That's when my day got better. I went home and as I walked in the door, my lovable dog Barney was there to greet me. It amazes me what unconditional love a pet will give and he, for all his odd behaviors is one of my greatest joys. But, the day gets better than just Barney being excited to see me.

At church, we started a Beth Moore study last night on Ester. Its amazing what a little time with God and reading Beth putting it all into perspective will do for your outlook on the day. My day went from horrible to not really so bad in the span of about 45 minutes. One thing this study does is to remind us that God has a miraculous plan for our lives, we just have to let it occur. Today in the study, Beth reminds us of Job and the problems that he faced and that we ALL face problems, and we ALL have issues on a daily basis, but if we let God handle them, there is a great ending waiting for us.

I leave you with this long post a verse from the Ester study.
Even when we're blind to the evidence, God "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will". - Ephesians 1:11.

God has this in control, we just have to let Him have the controls.