~neither can I~

A word about being married to an educator~
Mike is a good sport about nearly everything, but he's a particularly good one when it comes to being a teacher's husband.  Last night after he got home from work, I told him that I needed to go to the store and buy some things to finish up a couple of bulletin boards in my classroom.  He didn't hesitate when I asked him if he would like to go along and never complained once when we had to make a trip to a different store than originally planned.  By the time we got home at 8:30, he was tired and ready to call it a day.  As a matter of fact, we both were.

While I was buying some material to cover one of my boards, the store clerk and I found ourselves in conversation.  I told her that I was a teacher in Oklahoma and she replied back that once she had tried substituting in the local school district for a few years.  She asked me how long I'd been teaching and when I told her 39 years, she couldn't believe it and the truth is this.

Neither can I.

Yesterday I began the process of preparing a new classroom for the 39th time in my career and that is a sobering thought to me.  When I heard those words "I have been a teacher for 39 years" come out of my mouth as I was speaking with that nice store clerk last evening, it was with profound gratitude to the one above who led me to this vocation in the first place.

As I was moving the student desks,  unpacking boxes, arranging my collection of Kansas memorabilia over the top of the cabinets, putting things on the top of my desk, and a gazillion other little things yesterday, I thought about the kids who would soon be given to me and entrusted into my care.  What would they be like?  How would our first day go together?  Where would our progress be at the end of the first 9 weeks or even by mid-year?  Lots of thoughts were floating around in my mind yet even with all the questions I had, one thing remained a certain fact for me.

I am surely glad to have been chosen to be their teacher.

I cannot wait to meet them and to call them by name.  I have much to teach them but equally more important, I have much to learn from them as well.  The greatest job there ever was is that of being a teacher.  You will never convince this teacher otherwise.

29 sleeps more until the first day of school.
29 days until we are all together once again.
Truly, to God be all of this glory.

I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when I show them what's inside of this container.  It's a real Easter egg, now more than 54 years old that I dyed one Easter Sunday long, long ago.  It goes wherever I go and I'll fill them in on the story behind it the very first day of school this year.  Believe it or not, it's still intact albeit quite faded.  Once a kid asked me if I was ever going to break it open to see the inside of it.  My response was pretty short and sweet.  "No.  I don't think so."