An Angel and a Freight Train

Sometimes, when life sucks, Heavenly Father sends us angels, literal answers to our prayers, to show us He still loves us. And then he sends His Spirit with the force of a freight train so that we know exactly where that blessing came from.

Oh, btw, I'm speaking from personal experience.

If you remember, leading up to coming home and taking this job as a 7th and 8th grade English teacher, I received several really powerful witnesses that this is where I'm supposed to be right now. In one of my blog posts I wondered why He would confirm that to me so many times. Well, I found out.

It's the worst thing I've ever done.

I wasn't totally naive coming into this; I knew it would be hard. I just didn't think it would be this hard. Or not in so many different ways. All at one time. But it is. To be completely honest, I hate my job. I hate everything about it, except maybe that because of my job I'll get to go to Turkey next year for only $1000.

I rely so heavily on those confirmations now to get me through my days, and I am so grateful for an all-knowing Heavenly Father who gave me those experiences in advance so I would be able to push through when the questions arise in my mind about whether or not I made the right choice. I know I did. I don't know why it's the right choice, but I know it is.

I'm sorry if you're getting sick of only hearing about my personal messages from God. Most other things going on in my life are things I'd like to forget.

Now back to yesterday's experience. I had stayed after school on what was a pretty awful day and was trying to get work done while becoming increasingly overwhelmed by everything I had to do and the limited time and energy I had left with which to do it. Somehow, corralling 70 middle schoolers all day every day just sucks all the energy out of me. I had no lesson plan for the next day, no unit plan from which to draw a daily plan, and I could barely keep my eyes open.

Then an angel popped her head in the window of the door in my classroom. My MTLD Emily is my direct supervisor at Teach For America and it's her job to support teachers any way she can. She happened to be in the building helping another teacher, so she stopped over to see how I was doing. Her timing couldn't have been more impeccable. We talked for a minute, she asked what I was doing the next day in class, I said I had no idea. Shocking. So she said, "Ok. Let's come up with something!" In less than ten minutes, I had a lesson plan for the next day. And a pretty good one, at that. It would have taken me at least an hour to come up with that, due to my state of mind. She, with her fresh attitude and years of teaching experience, was able to come in and pretty much hand me a top-notch lesson plan on what seemed like a silver platter.

She literally saved my day. I was able to go home and get in my bed by 9:30. A miracle, to be sure.

Here's where the freight train comes in. As I was telling my friend about this later that night, I received such an overwhelming feeling of peace and love that I couldn't even finish my sentence. I knew that Emily's appearance wasn't just a happy coincidence. It was a perfectly orchestrated gift from a Heavenly Father who loves me, is mindful of my needs, and wants me to know that He knows how much I'm struggling right now. But He also wants me to know that He will push me through. It's not me. It's Him. He sent me here and He won't leave me alone. In John 14:18, Christ teaches His disciples about the Holy Ghost, and he says: "I will not leave you ^acomfortless: I will ^bcome to you."

I know that's true. He did it for me.