Sometimes I try to figure out my identity. Am I bus route driver or mom? A student? Or a volunteer? Maybe an employee? Maybe a wife? Cheerleader? Encourager? Maid, chef, shopper, communicator? Decorator? Detailer, or maybe a secretary? Am a personal tutor, bug exterminator, lawn service, and dog trainer? Driver education instructor, nurse, and trash lady? or, I know! A beautician, stylist, and personal trainer.
Do you ever feel like that? Simply filled with so many titles that at the end of the day you wonder if you really missed IT? Maybe you have missed your real identity. Christ follower. Child of the King. The redeemed. Sinner saved by grace. His. Able to do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
There are times that I drop off my children at school and think to myself, Do they know who I am?
If today was my last day on earth, would they know my heart's deepest desire?
How would they describe me?
Who do they think I am?
What do they think our family's journey of life is all about?
So I asked Ethan. I knew better to ask Ethan, but I did.
Me: "Ethan, what is my greatest desire?"
Ethan: " Your desire is to drink 20 diet cokes a day."
There you have it.
What will they answer Monday when the rat race starts up again? When we are trying to get out the door with lunch pails, homework, piano books, and our sanity?
Or after school as the bus route service Warren and I provide to them via our minivan and suburban passes through? Picking up one, dropping another off, all evening long?
God has opened the door for me to teach science in third grade this semester at Hugh Goodwin. (see my previous blog for more insight into this matter) I am having a great time. I am getting to apply things I am learning in my education classes (at SAU) every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in science. I have purchased a lab coat and goggles to enhance the experience for the kids when my cart rolls into their classroom. On my cart is LabQuests, ready to be used for learning. I decided it would be a good thing for the students to be aware of the expectations I have for them. So a set of Science Expectations were developed and posted on my cart.
As I was going over these expectations, God spoke. Somehow God uses the everyday little things in life to change, remind, and show Himself to me. And science expectations was no exception.
The expectations I have for the children in science is no different than what He has laid out for His children in life. Expectations for family. What my main role in life is.
Science Expectations
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 18
1. Be ready to learn!
(Anytime the Lord speaks, it should be time for us to learn!)
2. Listen to all instructions!
4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
3. Follow all instructions!
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
4. Complete all parts of the lab!
(sometimes my family seems like a lab!)
7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
5. Have fun learning!
....that it may be well with you..." (6:18)
Just as I am giving the students in my science class expectations to protect them and keep them from failing at the lab, so God does the same with this passage in Deuteronomy. He wants to protect our families and give us all we need to be "well with us." We have to be ready to hear Him, Listen to what He says, Follow Him, Obey Him, and Delight in His goodness. He wants that for your family and mine.
So, I choose to love the life (as crazy as it may be!) God has given me and not for a moment miss the purrpose of this life's journey in my family. Making the most of the opportunities to teach, talk, walk, and write the Words of Life on the hearts of my children.
This is who I am called to be in life, all that other stuff is just an added bonus.
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