Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Friends: Tuesday (because I have time) post

I don't think I'll be able to participate in Five Minute Friday until very late Friday night. I've got a teacher's conference ahead of me tomorrow afternoon. We're carpooling a few hours to a larger city where we will be attending a regional convention.
To say I'm excited is anticlimactic. What's funny to me is that I can recall my mom attending the same conference years and years ago. And I missed her terribly. I actually made a banner. (Remember when printers had paper that fed and was continuous unless you separated the perforated pages?)
"Welcome home, Mommy", it said. I was in the 8th grade. I still needed her, missed her when she was gone. I was 13 and the oldest.

Now I get to go and my oldest is only 9. My husband is well equipped to handle this. The girls don't have school (I'm blessed to teach where they attend-our school is Preschool through 12th grade) and so he doesn't have a huge job ahead of him. They enjoy the times with just them and him.

But back to friends. I am friends with my co-workers. Including our part-time staff, we have just over 30 employees. And? They're wonderful! To find people who care about children, care about raising them to know Jesus with their entire being and to take a job where you earn less, have less benefits, but ultimately make an eternal difference? These are my people! And this conference will have more people that have that same calling and desire to grow children not only in their academic life but in their spiritual life!

The blessing of my job is that not only do I get to teach math (which I have always loved), but I also get to teach the preschool/kindergarten and elementary chapels. These days are my greatest joy. Children worship without abandon and I get to worship with them, then teach them something about how they can be friends to everyone. How they can pray and God will answer them. I see their faith grow-I see them rise up and lead their classmates in ways I would not have imagined possible in young children in the world we live in.

My own girls are in my chapels still. I hear them recite their weekly verses they've memorized and God helps me tie all these things together and show it to them. It's truly the biggest blessing ever!
Oh, and now that I'm a full-time teacher? He's also providing more for us that we are then able to turn around and give with.

How did I end up in such a blessing place? I don't know. I know faithful ones who are not free like I am. Christians are imprisoned for their faith, tortured for their faith, I'm such a privileged American I cannot fathom the horrors. :( But, I just press in and try to obey and yield control and trust the most faithful of all. I try to discipline myself to pray intentionally.

Mostly, I try to live out Psalm 37:4-5
"Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:"
 
So, there's five minutes of my life right now. I can tell you, God is real. He's proved Himself to me over and over again.

If you're not feeling like rejoicing right now, I have a video for you. This really ministered to me this summer when it came out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp4WC_YZAuw

Love,
Tammy

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Mail: Five Minute Friday

It's been a month since I've been able to write a post for Five Minute Friday. No coincidence that the first day of school was that Wednesday and I wrote that Thursday.
Here's the link to Kate's page for the FMF fun. I hope you'll read other posts. Each person's take on the prompt is so unique and wonderful!

Go!

After a month of silence in the writing of posts, I have too many thoughts in my head to settle down tonight. The prompt is MAIL. Well, last week I received the Five Minute Friday compilation that was gathered by Susan Shipe in the MAIL on my 35th birthday!!
Happy 35th Birthday to me!!!!
 To tell you that I was a little excited is an understatement. My love language, words of affirmation, and my inability to retain much in my long term memory due to so much being task managed in my short term memory leads to me being a "keeper".

I keep papers. Birthday cards, love letters from the long-distance year of my husband and I in our dating/engagement period are all tucked into shoe boxes.
I have notes from my sisters, my mom, students, all encouraging me.
I love to encourage others. I love to send surprises in the MAIL. It's hard to surprise a person without their address, however, so I have to spoil it a bit for some of my online friends.

The anticipation can make the delivery that much greater.
This weekend I attended our women's retreat and served as the musician for our worship leader. It was challenging with a malfunctioning keyboard and a backup guitar which I had to rely on. (I've played piano since 1990 but only began guitar in 2000 to play worship songs.)
I'm pretty comfortable either way, but it's God who was in control.
The Fabulous Five. Worship team is incomplete without sound and video, and our team had both!

These dear sisters were my cabin mates. We are aspiring to restore our souls monthly in a group for worship time!

And? You know the "you've got MAIL" icon from our early internet days?
That's what God has for us daily!
He has an invitation for us. To come and worship at His feet.
That is what has been missing from my daily life. I'm praying, reading my Bible, teaching in a Christian school, but I was missing worship time.
And now that I've seen it, and He's shown me where I can carve out just ten minutes before my other tasks (after my first class), I am so delighted to be with Him!

*timer has gone off*

If you comment and it takes me almost a week to get back to you, please know I am not trying to ignore you. I have so little time with my family now that the weekends are pretty precious family time. I will try to respond on Mondays!!
Also, if you don't tell me your linkup number or your url, I may not be able to find your post on the prompt. Could you pretty please tell me one of those as well?

Love,
Tammy