Here's Hoping

Text conversation with a friend from last night:

Friend: Are you going to school tomorrow or Friday?

Me: Well. I may go tomorrow with B. But my first official day is Friday. I’m getting pretty nervous. And I’m thinking about school stuff.

Friend: It takes over your brain that’s for sure.

Me: I have this fear of my first week being a colossal failure and the kids deciding they don’t like me and the whole year being hell.

Friend: I haven’t slept all week thinking about school.

Me: What are your thoughts?

Friend: Kids are more forgiving than that. You know what you’re doing. It will come back to you.

Me: Thanks. I hope so!

----

And I do hope so. I hope that as I fall back in to this teaching gig I will be able to burst into a chorus of, “It’s all coming back, it’s all coming back to me now,” and go forward with authenticity of call and peace. I hope that I will remember the best of my teaching days while successfully learning the new grading, planning, discipline, technological, and curricular systems. I hope that I will feel comfortable in my own teaching skin and that my classroom will be a safe place of music and light and love…

But it’s nowhere near that right now! I did go to the school today with B. I met some people, helped set up furniture in the art room, and stood in the music room turning in circles, wondering how in the world I was going to set it up—knowing that I can’t set up anything until all of the stuff in the room is farmed out to where it belongs. I prayed for all of the students who would enter and exit the room and for all of the activity that would occur within its walls. I put up my family calendar. And then I walked away until tomorrow.

As I fall asleep tonight, I will pray some of the same prayers that I began praying last night, adapted from the Book of Common Prayer:

Eternal God, bless all schools, colleges, and universities, and especially JES, that we may be lively centers for sound learning, new discovery, and the pursuit of wisdom; and grant that those who teach and those who learn may find peace, safety, truth, love, and rest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Almighty God, heavenly Father, you have blessed me with the joy and care of children: Give me calm strength and patient wisdom as I bring them up, that I may teach them to love whatever is just and true and good, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Almighty God, I entrust all who are dear to me to your never-failing care and love, for this life and the life to come, knowing that you are doing for them better things than I can desire or pray for; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And amen.