Road Trip

My life has changed tremendously since I set up this blog a year ago. 

I changed jobs - from District-Wide Itinerant Teacher of Gifted for Polk County Schools - where I had a great deal of autonomy and set my own schedules and answered basically only to myself - to Teacher of Gifted at Jewett School of the Arts where I teach 4 classes of Critical Thinking Skills and 2 classes of what was supposed to be Journalism but which is actually ITV - or as I have called it and someone tattled on me, so what the h#ll, I'll post it here "The Dog and Pony Show". 

I teach sixth, seventh and eighth grade students and they are absolutely the greatest people I have ever met.  I love these kids.  I love teaching and working with these individuals.  Now, autonomy flew out the window, and I definitely have others to answer to - students as well as admins, if I decide I need to take the day off, I don't do it because someone will actually miss me and care that I am not around that day. 

I'm not indispensable; I make a difference. 

Even the Dog and Pony Show is tolerable because of the wonderful children I get to work with.  They put the news shows together and do what the admin wants done.  Now that the locks have been changed in the studio, the sabotage has stopped and the three months we lost are being regained.  But I am rambling.  I give it this dark nickname because I thought I was going to teach Journalism - with all the bounteous objectives the Florida Dept. of Ed has listed for journalism.  Instead, I key in onto only one objective - that of using technology to further the story (TV News).  Instead of instructing students in all the genres of Journalism and helping them become published in the areas of their natural talents, I key into the one genre: Broadcast Journalism. 

Not to be stymied; my students from all of my classes are becoming published - either as guest authors for BellaOnline's veterans column or as blogsters.  So, there. 

So my career has taken a Road Trip this year.  I have the map, but I'm still not sure where exactly this will lead me.

Jeremiah 29:11 still anchors me.

When the World says, "These drugs will take an edge off your depression."

Jeremiah 31:13 (New International Version, ©2010)

¹³ Then young women will dance and be glad,
   young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into gladness;
   I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.

Anti-depressants are the most widely prescribed drugs in the US today. Everyone goes through ‘doors of despair’ and ‘bubbles of grief’.  Sometimes properly prescribed anti-depressants can help you walk through these horrible times.

One of my favorite songs is “It Won’t Rain Always.”  No one is a stranger to sorrow.  It is a normal part of being alive.  You need to experience it; embrace it; feel the scope and sequence of it; and release it and go on with your life.  Once you intimately know sorrow, grief, and despair, you become stronger.  You realize it does not last forever.  It passes naturally and then you can be filled with gladness.

When the world says, "These drugs will take an edge off your depression,"

God says, "I will turn your mourning into gladness."

Heavenly Father, there isn't a part of me that doesn't hurt.  Everything aches, everything weeps, everything sobs in the darkness of my heart.  If I could just make it all go away, nothingness would be better than this.  But you whisper to me in my grief that all this blackness will be changed into glory.  I'll be happy again.  I'll smile and the smile will feel good and someone will love me again.  You'll do this for me, God, I know you will.  I trust you.  As dark as it is now, you will make it light.   You'll turn this mourning into gladness.  Amen.