Think about it.  This job brings out the worst in me.  If I want to be a better person, I should either get a different job or maybe just stay at home.  Great logic, don’t you think?  Isn’t that how we think sometimes? I’ll change my circumstances and then everything will be okay.   Maybe it is a new job, a new set of friends or even a new church.  But does better circumstances, really make me a better person?  Or does it just make me look like a better person?  I know there is a time and place to move on to different circumstances but I have a feeling we are more prone to do it when things are hard whether the time is right or not.   As a teacher, some weeks have more bad days than good but not a day goes by that I don’t forget how much I depend on God.  Even though I feel like a failure some days, I know I will never become who God made me to be if I don’t keep doing what he has called me to do even when it is hard and I mess up.   How to do what I do and practice his presence at the same time?  Well, I am still working on that.  I wish that God would miraculously overnight make me into this amazing teacher who could handle all sorts of discipline challenges.  Instead, God has chosen for me to take it one day at a time as he works away at the flaws in my character.  He wants to replace my impatience with his patience.  He wants to give me gentle words for the rash ones that want to come out.  He wants to change me from the inside out as I teach and change my students.  

So today, I came home and had a good cry.  Once again, I laid it all at my Savior’s feet.   I pray that this week I will depend on Him and not on me.  I pray that my students will see more of Him and less of me because right now the me they are seeing isn’t so great.  For some reason, I know I can’t quit even on my toughest days.  How about you?

Dear God, Thank you for working in and through us.  Forgive me for trying to do things on my own.  Today was one of those days and it was not pretty.   Work in me and through me.  Help me to have the patience and wisdom to teach these students everyday in a way that pleases you.  Amen