Good-bye Summer, Hello Work

         Last week I went back to work to get my classroom ready and to meet with the families of the children I will be teaching.  How quickly the check list of things that needed to get done took over my thoughts and my actions.  By Friday I had exhausted myself and came home to sleep a solid twelve hours.  During the week, I struggled to hold onto the peace that I have felt all summer.  Most of the days I kept up with my Bible reading and most of the days I managed to get in a heartfelt prayer but it was with constant struggle to keep out the noise of work.  The "noise" of work made me feel stressed, overwhelmed, and had me dealing with all kinds of feelings from frustration to inadequacy.  Yet in all of that, as I look back over my readings this week, at what I highlighted,  I can see a gentle thread woven just for me.  

   

     "But God made the earth by his power, and he preserves it by his wisdom.  With his own understanding he stretched out the heavens.  When he speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain.  He causes the clouds to rise over the earth.  He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses."  Jeremiah 10:12-13

     "He who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind."  James 1:6

     "I know Lord that our lives are not our own.  We are not able to plan our own course.  So correct me, Lord, but please be gentle.  Do not correct me in anger, for I would die."  Jeremiah 10:23,24

     "If you return to me, I will restore you so you can continue to serve me.  If you speak good words rather than worthless ones, you will be my spokesman.  You must influence them; do not let them influence you!"  Jeremiah 15:19

     "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain."  Psalm 127:1

     "Do not be wise in your own eyes."  Proverbs 3:7

    "But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.  They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water.  Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought.  Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.  

      The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.  Who really knows how bad it is?  But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives."  Jeremiah 17:7-10