How Do I Cover A Whole Semester In One Post?

As you can tell, I took almost an entire semester off from blogging. Looking back, I don't quite know how I made it through that semester except for the grace of God! I was taking 19 hours of classes, student teaching 2 days a week all day long, and had a job in which I was working a lot of hours. The semester was a blur! But now that I can sit down and think about everything that happened... it was hard.

First, student teaching was great. I love teaching! (Almost) every day I went into the school, I got that "this is where I'm supposed to be" feeling. I was paired with an amazing teacher who was strict enough that she got things done, but loving enough that she was one of the kids' favorite teachers. The Lord definitely put us together for a reason. I loved the structure of her classroom. I loved the way that she dealt with students and other teachers. She was great! And the kids. Oh the kids. Just thinking about them makes my heart hurt. I love them! Most of them. No. I love all of them, but I like most of them. Does that make sense? Oh, and that line that all teachers tell saying that they don't have favorites? Total. Lie. Or at least in my case... I'll share a couple of stories of students who truly touched my heart.

K: He was precious, but extremely talkative and rambunctious. That doesn't sound like a middle school boy at all, does it? *Bazinga* He had my heart immediately though. After teaching for a few weeks, it was time to have my first observation and it was scheduled during the class with K in it. Before class started, I walked over to K's desk and squatted down to eye-level with him. I said, "K. I'm being observed today, and I'm kind of nervous about it. But I need you to be on your best behavior and participate and make me look good!" He immediately replied, "I will! You're gonna do great!" Oh my heart. All during class K raised his hand, answered questions, and was quiet when necessary. I was so proud of him. After class was over, he walked over to me and gave me a high-five. Then he grabbed my hand and said, "Ms. P. You. Did. Awesome!" And my heart melted. This is one of the students that I will never forget.

C: There are no major stories with C, but I was able to form such a sweet relationship with her. In the hallway in the morning she would come up and just lay her head on my shoulder and tell me about her life. During class I would occasionally doodle a drawing on her notes or write her a small note and we would go back and forth. I probably sound like a horrible teacher now! But I promise. We weren't distracting :)

S: She was one of the kindest students I have had the pleasure of teaching so far. She made a constant effort to include others who she knew might feel left out. And she was so incredibly smart! Always working to improve her note-taking skills, etc. You know I was only TOO happy to share my color-coding tips with her... ;)

So many other students touched my heart and I have constant reminders of them from a drawing on my wall next to my desk to the bracelets they made me.

Sadly I am not student teaching this semester, but next semester I'll be back at it! In the meantime, I'm enjoying only taking 16 hours and working.

I love teaching! And I am exactly where the Lord wants me right now! What a comforting feeling.

{Rachel}

Peace That Surpasses Understanding

I know that this is supposed to be my blog all about my middle school ministry and teaching adventures, but this topic has been heavy on my heart. I've been trying to write this blog for a while now actually.

It seems like I am constantly hearing about death. Sometimes it's a close friend, sometimes it's the mother of a close friend taken by cancer, and sometimes it's just people throwing the word around like it's nothing.

As I think through the past year, I have had more deaths of people that I have known than seems normal. I have had two friends whose moms have died from cancer. One friend's dad was shot by her jealous mom. One friend's mom just died from two heart attacks. A girl that is in my sorority but at a different school was just shot in the head over road rage and died later in the day. And last, and definitely hardest of all was the death of one of my high school best friends.

Each of these deaths brought about different thoughts and scared me and caused grief. With the deaths of friends' moms, I thought about if I was in their shoes. The oldest ones have to be strong for their younger siblings. The younger ones still completely needed their moms (and so do the older ones). They no longer have their Mom! And what if my mom died? That is a terrifying feeling. I talk to her all the time. She intercedes for me daily in prayer. She comes and takes me to lunch when I'm having a bad day or bad week. She knows how to make me feel special. She takes care of me! So what happens if all of that is gone?

When Julia died, I remember exactly where I was. It was during recruitment on a Saturday. We had finished earlier in the day and my parents came up to move me into my new big-girl apartment. Abby, one of my close friends for a long time, was with me. We had gone to dinner and were now at Target getting the essentials like peanut butter and bread and pasta and command strips. In the isle to get command strips Abby and I both received texts from friends asking us where we were. When we replied, they told us that Julia had died. She was gone. For a few seconds (read: a couple of weeks) Abby and I were just in shock. Then my mom came around the corner with the cart and I told her. Then came the tears. They flooded hot and fast down our cheeks.

My sweet, precious friend who loved Jesus and everyone more than anyone I've ever known was dead. I would never see her again. She was constantly giving her life away to others for the sake of Jesus. And she was 20 years old. She was my age! She could have done so many more amazing things and lead so many more people to Christ! I'm not as loving or as good of a Christian as her so why couldn't I have died instead? She'd be more beneficial on earth that me anyway. These were all thoughts going through my head for the next couple of weeks.

Abby and I went back to my apartment and made my bed and did every mindless activity we could. It didn't help. A few days later, Julia's funeral was to happen. I drove home, walked in the door, saw my mom and once again lost it. She came with me to Julia's funeral, but the thing is, it wasn't a funeral. It was literally a celebration of her life. More than that, it was a celebration of Jesus in her life. I attempted to sing praises between sobs and listened to people talk about how much they loved Julia. It was perfect. After, they showed videos of Julia being crazy and dancing around singing like she always was. Side note: Julia danced more than anyone I've ever met.

Each person at the celebration also got a business card with her name beautifully written on it and a date on the other side. This date was our assigned day to remember Julia and to pray for her family. My date was yesterday. I thought about Julia and her family. Her sisters. How they're doing. I tried to write and letter and couldn't formulate the words.

One of the things that I've been praying through trials of friends and family as well as these deaths is for peace that surpasses understanding. It's not immediate. It hasn't come like a wave. But as I reflect, I see it. Each day, I can tell that my soul is more at peace. Thank you Jesus.

Meanwhile, I've been having conversations with people and having truth spoken into my life by them. I've also had to speak truth to myself. I think that that is one of the most important lessons that people can learn: to speak truth to yourself. Randy Pope one time said, "Don't listen to your heart. Speak to it, and tell it the truth." So through this pain, I am reminded that God has a plan. That He is faithful. That is near to the broken-hearted. That He is in control. That He created us and knows us better than anyone. That He weeps with us. That He will always provide. That He speaks through others. That He is constantly molding us into who He wants us to be. That I am called to trust Him. And many other things. So through the grief, I am learning and growing.

Lord, mold me and use me for Your glory. And please come soon! I anxiously wait for your arrival.

Well, It's Here!

Hey y'all!

Yesterday was the last day of my internship. Where has the time gone? All ten weeks have absolutely flown by! Well... almost all ten. Some were easy and others were really hard.

When I started the internship, I had to create 3 ministry goals for the summer and 3 personal goals. I'm happy to announce that I accomplished all of them, this blog being one of them!

This summer has been a major summer of growth for me. I've learned so much more about myself and working with a staff. I've learned more about ministry. I've learned about my strengths and weaknesses. I've completed multiple large projects. Overall it's been a wonderful summer! But...

I've decided to keep my blog going. My major is Middle School Education for Math and Science and I'm starting my student teaching this fall. That means that I'll be in a classroom twice a week all day with middle school students. And I fully intend on continuing my ministry as a teacher. So the blog will be changing some. I won't be involved with a structured church ministry, but I will be ministering in a middle school, specifically with 6th grade science students.

So you can be praying for me! I'll update y'all as I begin and know more. I'm sure I'll have some funny stories to share and plenty of prayer requests for patience!

Speaking on Trust Apparently Requires Trust

Hey y'all!

I've talked before about the events that we have for middle schoolers on Wednesday nights called Summer Nights. Each of the staff members were asked to speak at one of those events this summer and last night was my night to speak.

Let me preface this with the fact that I love being on stage. I've done everything from ballet to violin to acting to oratorical recitals to even speaking at the Bricks my senior year of high school. Earlier this summer I emceed for Summer Nights and had a blast doing it! This was different.

We were asked to give our testimonies but also relate it to the theme of Despicable Me, Glorious God. I've also given my testimony more times than I can remember. For some reason this was hard. I decided to take the clip from Despicable Me where the girls have to jump from Vector's hovercraft/plane-type-thing to Gru's. They have to trust that he's going to catch them and that related pretty well to my life for the past few years. There have been so many times in the past year where I had to jump and just trust that the Lord was going to catch me.

I wrote my talk and went over it with my boss. Then yesterday, as I was going over the talk I became extremely anxious. My stomach felt like it was in knots and I felt sick. I was absolutely positive that I was going to get on stage and forget the entire thing and look like an idiot. Sometime later in the day (still before the talk) I realized, well of course when I'm talking about trusting in the Lord, God's going to make me act on it. Even my speech needed to be an example in and of itself of trusting God in everything and trusting that He's going to catch me every time.

Thank the Lord that He does catch us every time! The talk went very well, just in case you were worried, but it was nice to know that it wasn't because of anything that I did right. It was all because God is trustworthy and sufficient!

*If you happen to want to see the whole talk, I can send you the document.

Book Review: Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot

After I finished reading and blogging on Quest for Love by Elisabeth Elliot, I decided to read the book that precedes it. It's called Passion and Purity. When I finished, I wasn't quite sure whether or not I should write a book review on it. There's something about the book that's very personal. Elliot shares the story of how her and Jim met and then continued in their relationship. He basically told her that he was head-over-heals in love with her but that he couldn't date her because he was being called to be single.

Jim believed that at that point he was called to be single so that he could do missionary work that married men couldn't necessarily do. This is all great, but I would have been extremely frustrated if I was Elisabeth. He went on in that way for about 9 years. They had contact at some points more than at others. Ultimately they were both called to Ecuador individually to work with the Quichua Indians. 3 years later, Jim Elliot died.

Elisabeth Elliot's story was heart wrenching. I cannot imagine having something dangled in front of me that I've desired for so long, waiting for another long period of time to get it, and then have it ripped away from me.

I've said before that I sometimes wished that I could be a great spiritual leader/mentor, but then I see all of the trials that they go through. Though I know that there will be hard things that happen in this life, and I know that the Lord will be with me through them all, I hope that he never makes me go through something as difficult as what Elisabeth Elliot went through.

It was so refreshing to hear about her views on love though. Elliot is intent upon men being the ones to pursue women. When we're constantly bombarded in our culture about how women need to step up and take the initiative, it's nice to hear godly wisdom from ones who have gone before me. Women are supposed to be feminine and wait for men to pursue them like Christ pursues the church. I love that picture. Maybe because I'm a sappy, sentimental girl who has been planning my wedding since my oldest sisters were planning their weddings. (I was nine years old.) But the idea of a marriage being an earthly picture of the relationship that we have with the Father is so incredibly beautiful to me.

Grace-Midtown Blessing

Hey y'all! Last Sunday I was invited by some friends to join them for a service at Grace-Midtown church in Atlanta. I went once before, a couple of summers ago, but now they're in a new and bigger building. I love visiting other churches and experiencing their worship and sermons. I'm also very picky about sermons. I've grown up at Perimeter with incredible in-depth sermons studying the Word so I've been spoiled. Something I usually use to decide whether I like the sermon or not is if it's Gospel centered. If the pastor is opening his Bible and pointing us to the Word, it usually means that the sermon is going in a good direction. This service was great though! I loved every part of it.

The worship was very different than Perimeter. A lot of the songs that they played were very repetitive which allowed for us to really think about what we were singing and focus on worshiping instead of on the screens and reading the words. (It was so good that I ended up buying two of their CDs! They're on iTunes if you want to check them out. They're called Rising and Sounds Like Sunset.)

The sermon was also great. They're doing a series right now about what it means to be a disciple. The week I went, they were focusing on being a disciple by being a discipler and using Colossians 3. The pastor, Chris Moerman, started with a quote from The Great Omission by Dallas Willard. "Jesus told us, as Disciples, to make disciples. Not converts to Christianity, nor to some particular faith and practice." He also talked about the death that we all die to ourselves so that we can live for Christ. I've heard this many times before, but he reminded us that we can't resurrect ourselves. We have to simply die and trust that the Lord will resurrect us and make us new.

Paul also talks in Colossians about how he imitates Jesus, and we are supposed to imitate Paul. This points to passing that on through discipleship. He also lists 5 P words. (Pastors love alliteration.)

1. Presence - With a discipler, it's a spiritual impartation of wisdom instead of knowledge. We need someone who's real with us and knows our "junk". Jesus doesn't just say "listen to me", He says "follow me". In the great commission, it says "AS you go, make disciples." You're already going somewhere or going after something, so rub shoulders with the people on the same path as you.
2. Purpose - All of us are invited into the mission and called into it.
3. Power - The role of the disciples was never to just follow Jesus and applaud. It was to watch and imitate.
4. Process - God in His infinite wisdom and grace gives us time to grow in character and capacity instead of giving us everything at once. For example, the prodigal son was crushed by an inheritance that he wasn't ready to carry.
5. Pursuit - God loves all of His children but there's a special closeness in relationship for those that pursue Him. God hides things for us, not from us. He wants us to search them out.

And one last quote: "To whom did we allow sufficient access to our lives that they were able to 'imitate our lives as we imitated Christ?'" -Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture

I hope this was as encouraging to you as it was to me!

Book Review: Dangerous Calling by Paul David Tripp

Unlike the other books that I've blogged about so far, this one was a semi-difficult read. It was packed full of information and conviction.

As I began the book, I found myself thinking that it wouldn't apply to me. Tripp often addresses his reader as "pastor" which made me believe that I, as a lowly middle school ministry summer intern, was not who he was talking to. After all, I'm not even a full time staff member! I'm only here for the summer, and I have one of the lowest jobs on the totem pole. When it comes to pride in a certain status in a job, I have no right to have any at all! Well, I was completely wrong. Tripp is addressing every member of the church from the head pastor to the Sunday morning volunteer.

Tripp talks about the pride involved in being involved in a church ministry. He talks about a disconnect in the public and private lives of people in the church. He gives story after story of other people in the church who he's had council who have gone through these situations. These stories make it real. This book also helped me to realize that my pastors aren't perfect. Yes, that's cliche, but it's true! I have put David McNeely, Randy Pope, Steve Brown, and more on a pedestal for so long that I forgot that they're real people. They have families, and they sin. They go through hardships, maybe even more than normal people do. (Side note: I've always said that I could see myself marrying a pastor, but after reading some of the stories, that thought was terrifying to me! Not super relevant, but hey, that was my thought.)

As always with books, the author can say things better than I can, so here are some of my favorite quotes.

“If you aren’t daily admitting t yourself that you are a mess and in daily and rather desperate need for forgiving and transforming grace and if the evidence around has not caused you to abandon your confidence in your own righteousness, then you are going to give yourself to the work of convincing yourself that you are okay.”

“No one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.”

"One of the things that makes a sermon compelling is that the preacher is worshiping his way through his own sermon.”

“If you are not feeding your soul on the realities of the presence, promises, and provisions of Christ, you will ask the people, situations, and things around you to be the messiah they can never be.”

“He had his identity too attached to his opinions and ideas and felt that rejection of them was rejection of him.”

“Autonomous Christianity never works, because our spiritual life was designed by God to be a community project.”

Are you convicted yet? I encourage you to read this book. You know that verse that talks about how The Word never comes away void? Well, I know it's talking about the Bible, but I think that it can apply to many books too, and this is one of them. I don't think you can read this book and come away the same. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing this to the Bible! The Bible is the infallible word of God and this is a book written by a flawed person.)