"You Poor Thing"

up late because my devotional tonight has to be written out and I will forget (I tend to forget things if I don't do them when I remember).

Let me describe the setting to you: 77 kids, age 5-7, all on a stage to practice their songs for their Christmas program. 4 teachers losing their minds and 2 aides also losing their minds. My class is front and center but they are the worst ones. I have my autistic kid spinning in circles, saying "weeeee". I have kids sitting down, kids swinging their legs, kids turned completely around, kids telling me they are hot/tired/thirsty/need to go potty, kids jumping and yelling, and everyone looks like they don't want to be there. My job (especially since my aide has been gone) is to stand by my autistic student with his motivator board to try to get him to do what everyone else is supposed to be doing (while monitoring the other 19 of my kids). He is sucking on his fingers 24/7, but at least that keeps him quiet. When he is not spinning, he is trying to climb me to be picked up for a hug (you can tell he is used to doing that with his mom because he is always hanging on me) and I am trying to remove him and explain that he needs to practice right now. He usually tells me he doesn't want to and asks if he can take a nap in the chairs. I say no and PRAY he doesn't have a meltdown in front of everyone. So far so good.

So that is a pretty good idea of what it looks like, when an elderly teacher, who has come in to help my class during rehearsal since we are aideless and OUT OF CONTROL, leans over to me and says (while looking mostly at my autistic student, who is pretty much my favorite) "you poor thing...having to do this every day."

Let's review. She has been teaching for at least 30 years. She looked at me with such pity, as if she had just had to tell me someone died. I was blown away. I put the biggest smile on my face and said "Yes, well, God won't give you anything you can't handle. That's what I tell myself everyday, especially days like today." She didn't respond for a few seconds and then finally said "good for you!"

As I processed this the rest of the day, I kept thinking "I don't HAVE to do this everyday...I GET to do this everyday. Don't PITY me. Yes I may seem stressed at the moment but that doesn't mean I don't love every second of what I am doing. It is a different kind of stress and a different kind of work. What greater feeling than to be doing what God has literally MADE you to do. He has given me every single thing I need to teach and He will continue to test me, build me, shape me, teach me things through all of these situations. There is not ONE day that goes by where I don't wake up thankful for this job and the opportunity that I was given directly from God. So DON'T PITY ME."