Juggling all the way to Breakdown Express

          Hands down one of the most insane time in a teacher's year is the week of parent teacher conferences.  There is an unbelievable amount of prep work that is needed in order to have a twenty minute conversation about a student's progress.  Weeks before the prep work for the conference even begin, a teacher has spent time giving and analyzing numerous assessments in various content areas which allow the formulation of a grade which then goes on a report card.  Transferring that data onto a computerized form then takes about five minutes a child (I know because I timed it).  On top of that, the teacher has made sure every student has taken the mandated "testing" needed to rate the student in reading and math.  Teachers have collected work samples, printed off report after report, collected needed lists, and created conference notes.  They then spend time organizing those items into folders so that they are prepared and efficient when it is time to meet with the parents.  All while being responsible for this, and expected to get EVERY parent to show up to a conference, teachers are still required to teach content (and be responsible for between 20 to 35 kids) for 6.5 hours a day.  So the regular expectations for the job still apply.  You know what else still applies?  The regular expectations of life.  A teacher's bills still need to be paid, dinner still needs to be made, the house still needs cleaning, the lawn still needs mowing, spouses still need connection and quality time, sons and daughters still need to be at practice on time or supported during games or concerts.  This is a HUGE thing and DIFFICULT thing to juggle.  Change the name of the profession and the list of responsibilities and the results will be no different.  Juggling work and family for any adult is unbelievably hard and insane at times.
            It is during these times that I feel most emotionally vulnerable.  Probably because of the fast pace of life at the time and the lack of sleep, but my mind and heart become more sensitive to seeing all the ways of how I am failing at this juggling act.  Realizing how much my husband steps in to help me with the house and kids and then receiving his attentive concern and care for me at the end of a long day makes me feel terrible instead of loved and cared for.  Realizing that I might not have even checked in with my kid to see how her day or practice was makes me feel neglectful.  My mind and heart focus not on the good things I'm doing or receiving from others but begins to hyper focus on the ways I am "letting others down."  Throw in well meaning family members judgment about the choices you are making for your family and well............ you can just hear the emotional breakdown coming from a mile away.   
           That's what I felt this year during conference week.  Mid week of conferences I could see myself standing on that platform just waiting for the train to come in.  I was feeling the exhaustion, feeling the fight and the anxiety of white knuckling my week and working feverishly to stay on top of it all.  All the while waiting for my appointed time to board the breakdown express and have a good cry over what a failure I was at life.  One morning on the way to work, I realized that my heart was clouded with negativity and it really was not serving me well.  I realized I did not want a ticket on the Breakdown Express.  I wanted to take back control of my thoughts and my heart but I didn't know how.  That's when I was reminded of the title of this blog "my heart for his."  I stopped and asked myself "Angela, Do you really want that?  Do you really want God's heart?  Do you want to see your life and the people in it from his perspective and not yours? Is your blog title just that, a cute title or is it your desire- to be more like Christ and less like yourself?"  In that moment, I opened up my hands and I said to God "I surrender this heart of mine to you.  I want to exchange this clouded, negative, sad heart for yours.  I am standing here trying to crush this heart in my hands and I don't want that anymore.  Please give me your heart for mine.  Take my painful and broken heart and give me your whole one.  I just can't do this without you."  
            I would love to say that after that moment, the list of responsibilities changed and instantly I was absolved of all the to dos and expectations that were wearing me down but that didn't happen.  What did happen was that my heart received a peace, a fullness of love, and a rest from the negativity.  My focus and perspective shifted from seeing my failures to seeing all the ways that God's love was alive and caring for me through the kindness of others.  Every idle, negative, good for nothing thought was taken captive and I felt renewed to be an active participant in the story God was writing for my life. I was reminded that I don't have to be perfect, I just have to be surrendered.  His grace is enough.  
            If you are struggling today, I encourage you to surrender to the love of Christ.  He won't tell you that you are a failure.  He won't hold up a list of all the things you are doing wrong.  He loves you completely.  He sees you as perfect.  He wants to walk with you, partner with you, work through you.  He wants to share in your struggles, in your joys, in your life.  Trust him today, you will not regret it.          

"Three years will give you such a pain in the heart!"

       I honestly cannot believe that it has been three years and four months since my last post.  I mean I know that I have drifted away from writing, even though my fingers have longed to type so many times and my heart has pinned to pour itself out onto a page, but three years????  If you have ever watched the Disney movie Aladdin, then you know the title of this post is a spin on Genie's famous words as he is finally freed from his lamp.  He says "Ten thousand years can give you such a crick in the neck!" Well, turns out three years of living can give you such a pain in the heart!  In fact it seems sometimes that one minute, one hour, one day, one week, one month, one year can give you a pain in the heart.  Just LIVING comes with having pains of the heart and let's be honest, those pains of the heart can at times leave us immobile.  We move but we are unable to move forward.  Life keeps moving forward and physically we are moving forward but inside our heart we are stuck.  It only takes the smallest of events to begin a hemorrhaging of pain simply because we cannot stand to look the pain in the eye and give it a name.  Instead, we begin living a life where on the outside we appear to have a pulse but on the inside we are dead.  
      These last three years have taken me on a journey I did not expect.  I am estranged from my father.  I lost an entire support group of friends I called "family".  I watched someone I love fall headfirst into the deep throws of addiction.  I watched the heaviness of depression steal joy from my child.  It seems I can jump from one day feeling like I have things together to being painfully aware that in a split second my pain from the past or present can take the driver's seat and derail my life. However, with time, space, and Jesus, I am slowly moving forward.  I am making better choices for myself.  I set boundaries in my relationships with others and I hold to it.  I am working to CHOOSE the lens in which I see things and events, to remember what really matters.  I do my best now to name the pain as it comes.... abandonment, rejection, disappointment, judgment, self hate.....  because When I give name to the pain, it comes out of hiding into the place of light.  In the light, Jesus can minister to my pain.  He shows me where the pain originates from and then helps me to deal with it.  If I leave the pain hidden, it consumes me and rules me.  I am not in control the pain is and I do not make good choices when pain is running the show. But when I surrender to the light and I trust Jesus to run the show, I can breathe, I am alive.  I have rest and I am at peace.  Right now in my journey, I am not perfect at this art of surrendering my pain and I may never be perfect at it but then again Jesus doesn't expect perfection.  I am so thankful for that.  

Until the next time (which I hope will not be three years),
Angela  


"For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord, Walk as children of the light for the fruit of  light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them."- Ephesians 5:8-11