When Hard Obedience Becomes our Pearls of Joy

 As a teacher, I sometimes encounter students who come against something difficult for them to complete, and their reaction is oftentimes anguished frustration.

As a Christian, I encounter my own string of difficulties that can equally frustrate me, making me grouchy to say the least.

But as someone who pursues God, I imagine he prefers to give us the hard tasks, because it is through hard obedience that we grow the most in our walk with him.

I love words, so when I think about the idea of something being hard, I counter it with the opposite. Soft? Easy? I imagine soft, easy obedience is doing something that feels comfortable, therefore making it pleasant for us. But much like a pearl that is formed only through an irritant, I imagine my own life can only become beautiful in God’s eyes if I am irritated by the sin that so easily entangles.

Philippians 2: 5-11 says that we should try to have the same attitude as Christ who didn’t try to get to the top of the ladder and sit equally with God. Instead, he willingly left the plush life of heaven and stepped into the harsh confines of a human body, and then even went to the cross for a death more horrific than we can imagine. But through his death, his hard obedience, came something extraordinarily beautiful.

I don’t know about you, but I think I may have had a bad attitude through the whole dying on a cross ordeal. But Jesus didn’t. And God’s word says that we need to emulate Christ; so when life asks us to do the hard things in obedience to what God has designed for our lives, we should not only do them, but do them with a gracious attitude.

Then we shall behold the priceless beauty of a pearl emerging because we chose to fight against the irritant with hard obedience and a joyful heart.

An Open Letter to Fellow Educator Friends

In July of 2020, I resigned from MCHS after 13 years in public education, and with great turmoil deep in the pit of my stomach, I packed up my belongings into the bed of two trucks (yes, two-you don’t realize how much of your life gets transplanted into the classroom in so many ways even beyond personal belongings) and drove away from a job I deeply loved. Crossing that threshold one last time held more crossroads than I even realized at the time.

Life shifted quickly as I moved into a new position for Pinehaven Christian School and began a journey into the private sector of education where homeschoolers abound. I was met with friends who offered insight and encouragement and welcomed me into their homes to talk all things education and life and purpose, and the conversations paralleled the countless ones I was blessed with in the halls and rooms of Mount Carmel High School.

As life settled in, I began to notice a closed door into the public sector that I naively assumed would remain open. It had likely shut the moment I crossed that threshold of MCHS, drug my belongings into the basement of my home to be stored, and began to teach for Pinehaven, but I suppose I was just too busy to notice it at first. And I fully realize I asked for it; the choice was mine and no one else is to blame. But now that it stares me down daily, I find myself in an array of reactions.

Some days I want to bust it down and force my way back into the hearts of public educator friends. I want to tell them that I still firmly believe in all they do and am perhaps an even bigger fan than they could realize because like them, I too have walked the oftentimes daunting road of doing my very best to make a small difference in an ever indifferent sea of teenage storms. I want to shower them with encouragement for doing the hard things every single day by showing up and giving their best even as it seems futile. I want to tell them the truth of how much they are loved and appreciated for their endless sacrifices to the youth of our communities. In short, I want to say, “I see you, and I thank you, even from afar.”

Other days I want to just sit at the door and listen in, longing to be part of their comings and goings and belong once again to their fold. But that door seems to have shut when I signed the resignation letter and walked off the stage of public education and into the private sector. Please know that I don’t at all blame my public educator friends for the shut door; in fact, my educator friends who know me personally still readily accept me. I do, however, find a grave distance between private educators and public educators at large, and I readily see it is a product of our culture that I too have fallen under. Honestly, both sides are to blame.

For some reason, we have all developed this mentality of them vs. us when it comes to private vs. public education. I find it likely that the public educators think the private sector sees themselves as superior. In truth, the homeschool mom or the me’s of this world likely spend most days second-guessing our attempts because we too find our jobs are hard and require endless sacrifices for the youth of our own little communities. I also find it likely that the homeschool moms can radiate pride where humility should abound, further inciting division. I also recognize that not all homeschool moms are the same mold, nor are all public school educators, and a whole other array of reactions too lengthy to discuss here have widened the no-man’s-land between the two worlds.

As I have stood in both realms, I can’t help but see the unnecessary chasm that divides our worlds. The honest truth is we all have a heart to help kids reach their full potential; it is just the specifics of the environment that look a little different. At the end of the day, we all love the students before us and want to do whatever we can to move them towards a better future. 

So to my homeschool educator moms and my public educator friends, I am asking us all to consider the larger perspective and make a move toward an open door where we all work together knowing that neither side deems themselves superior. Instead, we should encourage one another in our similar endeavors and do our very best to collectively build a better community by offering hope and promise for all students in our midst, because every student really does matter, regardless of their individual educational environments.