Rain and Reflecting

It's cold and rainy today in Fresnillo, one of those days where you just want to curl up with a blanket and not leave the house. Thankfully, today is our day off so I am able to do just that. So as I sit here contentedly with a hot cup of tea and leftover Thanksgiving apple pic, in my warm sweatpants and favorite Samford sweatshirt, listening to A Charlie Brown Christmas music, I thought it was a good time to catch up with some blogging and share some reflections...

Over the past several weeks, I have experienced some hard times and challenges. I won't go into all of them here and I recognize that "hard times" is always a relative term, but there have been several times when I just wanted to say, "Seriously, God?! This too?" However, in each challenge, I am trying to see what God wants to teach me from it, and there is certainly an abundance of lessons to be learned from each trial, big or small.

As I was thinking about my thanksgivings for the year and how exceedingly blessed I really am, I was reminded of an important truth: God is ALWAYS sovereign. This is one of my favorite attributes of God, and there have been many times I have joyfully seen the Lord display His sovereignty in my life...from placing me on the perfect hall freshmen year, taking my "unassigned position" and putting me in exactly the school and grade level I would have chosen in the school system, and even the story of how I ended up here at CFCI in Mexico. I love retelling these stories and countless others of God's sovereignty. However, God is sovereign in the tough times, too. While these "negative" examples are not as much fun to remember, they are just as much testimonies to the Lord's faithfulness. God is never looking away and nothing is outside of His hands. I am so thankful for this fact and encouraged by it.

Another lesson I have been learning is that I only have to live one day at a time. While I desire to always be full of praise and a heavenly perspective such as mentioned in the above paragraph, the truth is I do struggle with each challenge that comes and often do not react that way. When I think about the future sometimes, I get overwhelmed because I know there are more challenges ahead always. God recently really encouraged me just to trust Him for TODAY. He will give me the grace and strength I need one day at a time, for whatever challenges arise.

So, today I am thankful for the simple pleasures of today. Tomorrow, through God's grace, I will handle whatever comes... be it a "crisis" or not.

Can you help solve it?

As a way of keeping in touch, some of my former students email me. I always love hearing from them, especially since I don't get to see them in the halls or lunchroom this year like I have been able to in the past. Recently, I received an email from one of my old fourth graders. In the email, he told me about a situation with another (older) student whose mom and dad had both abandoned him. It was obvious that he was really concerned and worried about this situation. The part that gripped me was this though: He wrote, "Could you help him solve that problem?" Never mind that I live in Mexico right now or that the other student's parents had moved very far away, just a simple "Can you fix it, Miss Sloderbeck?" It made me feel both good and bittersweet that he thought I could and reminded me of what a privilege (and also heavy responsibility) it is to be a teacher. I also thought about how we are to have faith like a child. I can see why...