2-15-11

Now that I'm student teaching, I think about my life in terms of weeks. When I write all of my lesson plans, I save them as "Math 2-21-11" or whatever, based on the Monday date. Well, this past week in my mind was 2-15-11 (because I didn't count Monday since we had a field trip.) ANYWAY, point is, 2-15-11 was a crazy week.

It started on Monday in ADPi Bible study. We're reading Francis Chan's Crazy Love, which I've heard sooooo much about, so it's good to finally be reading it. The chapter we did on Monday was about love- not only God's love for us, but also our love for God. Appropriate, given that it was Valentine's day. We went through some verses, including the commonly referenced Matthew 22:37 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind."

It's one of those verses that I feel like I've heard and sung about a lot, and it's easy to be like "duh I love God...", but it really made me think about how lately I feel like my relationship with God has been focused on trying to be obedient, and trying to fit time with Him into my "busy" life-- not on my love for Him. So it was kind of an "oh, crap" moment for me.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning. I was driving to school. For those of you who don't know, I have about a 40-minute commute to my school everyday. Something that I've been getting really excited about lately is the fact that it's starting to get light outside just as I get to school now. I always disliked the fact that my 40 minute drive in the morning was made in the dark, so I'm LOVING the like 15 minutes of light that I get these days. Anyway, I was driving, and I was listening to a Passion CD. The song "Awakening" came on. Given my realization earlier in the week, the lyrics were appropriate:

In your presence, in your power, awaken me

For this moment, for this hour, awaken me

For you and you alone,

Awake my soul, awake my soul and sing

Well, just as the CD got to the part of the song that says:

"Like the rising sun that shines,

From the darkness comes a light,

I hear your voice, and this is my Awakening"

the sun came up and 385 was illuminated all around me. It was seriously the coolest thing ever. It was a reminder of God's faithfulness and his presence in the minute details of my life, even when I'm guilty of putting my relationship with him on a back burner.

Well. Thursday, I was driving back from school (seeing a pattern?) with two of my fellow student teachers. I was traveling down 385 in the left lane, and the car on my right started to merge into my lane. I could either stay where I was and get sideswiped/ pushed off the road, or swerve. So I swerved. I swerved off onto the left shoulder, which was a slight drop off the road- enough to make me lose control of my car. I swerved back onto the road, and by that point my car was all over the place- I seriously had no control over it at all. After fishtailing for maybe like 100 feet? (I'm terrible at estimating distance), my car spun completely around. On the side of the interstate. I saw 385 spin completely around me. Dirt and grass covered my windshield, and I heard the most terrible noise ever. I braced myself, thinking "This is about to hurt so bad" and realizing that I was heading straight into the opposite side of the interstate. Then, the spinning stopped. Everything was completely still, and I realized that I was in the median, facing the opposite direction that I'd been driving. The terrible noise had been those cables that divide the interstate, scraping my car. Somehow my car was caught between the cables- 2 of them were on the right side of my car, and one was on the left side. I can't tell you how many times I've thought, "why are those even there, how much could they really help?" Well, those 3 little cables saved me from spinning into the middle of oncoming traffic on the other side of 385. All 3 of us were completely unhurt.

All of this is made more ironic by the fact that my cooperating teacher and I had just had a conversation about wrecks that day. Literally the LAST thing that I said to my her before I walked out the door on Thursday was, "yeah, I've never been in a real wreck before, but it's one of my biggest fears because I'm afraid something would happen to my back, and I'd get hurt really bad." (I had back surgery in high school, and my spine is fused.)

So, from this experience I can gather a few things:

1. Never say never- I think that sometimes we get to thinking that we're invincible, and that things that happen to other people would never happen to us. Yeah, it only took me about 30 minutes to retract my statement about the wrecks.

2. I was instantly reminded of John Piper's book Don't Waste Your Life, which I read last year. I had this horrible realization when I thought, "what do I have to show for this past week of my life, besides completed lesson plans and a unit that I designed on the Civil War?" It was a huge reality check for me; nothing in my life is so important that it should take my focus off of my creator and my savior. Furthermore, all of the things that I complained about this past week are SO STUPID. In the grand scheme of things, they don't even matter at all!

3. God is so good. I know people throw that around a lot, but He is. He gives us these beautiful lives, which we gripe about more than we enjoy them. So what have I done with mine this weekend? Enjoyed it. Spent time with my friends and my mom. Read my Bible. Not thought about school at ALL. Will I get to my work eventually? Yes. But it's not my first priority anymore.

"All our praise is focused through Jesus on this incomparably wise God! Yes!" Romans 16:27, the Message