Not For Failing

I have another confession.

I know the music classroom is where I’m supposed to be for now. The peace that I feel combined with the windows and doors that have flung wide open have made that perfectly clear.

However.

I must admit that saying, “I’m going back to the classroom,” has been a struggle.

It’s not been a struggle because I’m ashamed of the call.

It’s been a struggle because of my pride.

Even though I know that finishing divinity school, moving to SC and working for WMU, teaching piano to Griffin and Amelia, caretaking for Mrs. Flora, completing a unit of CPE, nannying Journey the Dog, and spending extra time with my family has grown and positively changed me beyond what I ever could have imagined, part of me still feels as if I have failed.

Part of me feels as if people are thinking, “Oh. She didn’t make it in the ministry, so she’s going back to teaching.”

As if I’m living into the idea that, “Those who can’t, teach.”

But that’s not it. That’s not it at all.

I happen to think that teachers are some of the most important persons in the world. I hold teachers in highest regard and find them to be the most patient, creative, caring, giving, loving, self-sacrificial, multi-tasking, intelligent, and capable persons I know. I believe that teachers teach because they can make a difference—not because they can’t do anything else.

I want to scream these facts to the world. I want people to know. I want people to understand that re-entering the music classroom is something that I am choosing because it is where I have been led…however bumpy the leading may have been.

My pride wants people to know that I’m not going back into the classroom because I failed—because I didn’t make it in the ministry—because I was stupid to leave the school system in the first place and lose five years of benefits and retirement.

My pride wants people to know that teaching is my ministry for this time in life—that it’s not just a job that I’m doing because I can’t do anything else. (For the record, I turned down two jobs before taking my current position).

My pride is struggling with projected criticism and turned up noses at work the legislature has recently deemed a factory to be run like a business instead of a person-forming place of learning and welcome that I know to be vitally important work. And I guess, truth be known, my pride is struggling to reconcile these thoughts with myself.

So there you have it folks: My circular, somewhat ridiculous, but all-together true confession on this first official teacher workday and the day that I signed my contract.

I imagine I’m not the only person with a confession tonight. A fear, anxiety, worry, concern, regret, broken heart, ill feeling, unpopular belief, skeletal closet, or something else. And while you may not want to make that confession here (or maybe you do), I hope that you will speak it aloud to yourself and the God in whom you believe. There is something healing about speaking the truth.

Speak away, my friends. And know that this fumbling music teacher will be singing a prayer of peace, strength, and courage for you…and herself…tonight.