In talking to a lot of my friends this week, it dawned on me how pretty much everyone has something in their life that they wish were different. Even if they're super content, people still have lapses where they really wish their life looked a certain way. Lately, I've been in somewhat of a lapse.
When I was younger, I had this vision of what my life would look like, and sometimes I really still want that. In my vision, I was some amazingly chic girl who lived in a city and had some fabulous job where she made lots of money and could get all sorts of fabulous things and who had a fabulous husband that she always did fabulous things with like going to dinner at cool restaurants every night, going to shows, and traveling to all kinds of amazing places.
Right now, I'm a single middle-school teacher who lives in a small Southern town with her mom, step-dad, and seven-year-old brother. It's basically the exact opposite of what I dreamed of. So opposite that I use a version of it as an example when I'm teaching my students about irony.
Whenever you graduate from anything, people like to give you stuff with Jeremiah 29:11 all over it: "'For I know the plans that I have for you' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.'" I guess this is a nice thing to tell people, but in general I feel like kids going off to college tend to have some kind of plan figured out (although it usually changes). They feel like they have the whole world in front of them, and they tend to be pretty optimistic about their life and how it is going to turn out. People also say this verse when something really big (usually bad) happens to someone--kind of like this "yeah, I know this is really terrible, but it's God's plan, so it's what's best for you." There's nothing wrong with that either--we need to be reminded of it during difficult times.
But I think people really need to hear this verse more when they get older and they have those moments when they start to think to themselves, "Hey, my life shouldn't be this way." The moments when they look around at what they're doing and feel like it's small, unimportant stuff. The moments when they feel like no one sees or appreciates them. The ones where they start to feel a little useless or like they deserve something more. The ones where they start to think about what kind of life would really make them happy--and it's not the one they're living. We need to be reminded that God's plan is just as present in the mundane things as it is in the big stuff.
The thing about seeing God's plan in the mundane is that if we take the time to look, we can usually see reasons why God is right and we are wrong. This isn't always the case with the big stuff; God's reasons aren't usually as obvious when we're there. Like my student whose dad just died--it's hard to see the reasons for that. But the fact that I'm single, that I'm a teacher, that I just moved back home, if I take the time to think about it, I can see so many reasons why that's best for me, why it's better for me than being some cool, married, urban girl. Why I like it more than I would like my other life. To prove that, I started to think of a list why the place I am is exactly the place I'm supposed to be.
Reasons Why, if You are Me, it is Great to be a Single Teacher Who Lives at Home
1) If I lived somewhere else, I would go to a different church. And if I did that, I wouldn't have been in my Bible study for the past year and a half. The girls in my group have been some of the biggest blessings to me. They have put up with me complaining/melting down over a lot of things, and they always listen and encourage me.
2) My mom is amazing. She went out of town for a day yesterday, and I was sad when I got home because I didn't get to see her. It's really great to go home after a long day and know that she'll be there waiting for me with a hug.
3) I get to see my little brother grow up. He gets excited when I get home. I get to go to his soccer, basketball, and baseball games. I get to play Transformers, and cars, and build stuff out of Legos.
4) I'm close to my family and get to see them often.
5) I work at a great school with great people. Some of my closest friends now are people I work with, and a lot of them are Christians so I can go in their rooms in the mornings or afternoons if I'm having a hard day and know that they will speak truth to me. It is wonderful.
6) Students! I'm not going to lie, it is nice when you go to work everyday and people are excited to see you. Especially when they are middle schoolers and they smile and run down the hall to hug you in the mornings. And when they go on to 8th grade but still come back to the 7th grade hall and see you. But, it's even greater when you can see them grow over the course of the year. I have several students this year who started off as struggling ELA students. This week we have been writing analytical essays on novels they read in class. One of these students in particular is doing an amazing job. He was the only one in his class to write his own thesis, and he is finding great quotes to support it and thinking deeply about his book. I am so proud! It's also really fun to go to all their games and performances and see how talented they are and to see how much it means to them and know God is using me to make a difference in their lives.
7) Reading! I get to read at work. And I get to help kids pick out books. And I get to see kids turn in to readers!
8) Time. Because I'm single, I have a lot of flexibility with my time. I can serve people in ways that my married friends and my friends with kids can't. The time I would spend working on my relationship with my husband can be spread around to lots of relationships--with my family, my friends, and my students. And I have lots of time for myself. Just last week I was talking to one of my married friends about how busy I have been lately. I was telling her about how I had spent time with my brother, gotten coffee with a friend, gone to several baseball games to see students, done homebound with one of my students who is out, gone to see a friend who was going through a hard time, plus a bunch of other stuff (like work and meetings....). Her response was "Yeah, you wouldn't be able to do all of that if you were married." Since I'm single, God can use me to love tons of different people.
So see, God knows exactly what He's doing. He knows me better than I know myself. And while I sometimes question it, His plan is perfect, and I am right where I should be.
