Hi First name / friend!
Let’s be real, there will always be pencils and books in my life. In fact, they are some of my favorite things, but after more than 40 years, this is the first time I'm not preparing for the upcoming school year.
Of course, I attended elementary, middle, and high school, though sometimes the school schedule was a bit different since it runs from March to December in Chile, their summer months being December through February. Once I graduated from High Schook, I went straight into college for my Bachelor's, and straight into my first Master's from there.
While I had a couple of years before I started working on another advanced degree, my parents were college professors, so our family was still very much tied to the school-year calendar. And as soon as I began working on my degree, I also began teaching at a local college, where I spent the next 10+ years.
By the time I resigned my teaching position, I had kids, and they were in school, which kept us tied to the school schedule yet again. And even once we decided to homeschool, we continued with the traditional school calendar.
Now that I have graduated my youngest from high school, I am no longer teaching, and I'm not in the home of teachers, I find myself a bit thrown by the fact that my year-round schedule will all be the same.
While there is a tinge of worry because the last time I went through a drastic change like this (resigning my teaching position) I went through a major identity crisis, I’m praying that I’ve been grounded in the Word long enough to lean into the fact that what I do is not my identity. In fact, God used that identity crisis to draw me to Himself. (If you’re interested in hearing more about that testimony, you can listen to
this video on my YouTube channel.)
Just as God created the seasons in nature to change throughout the year, He created the seasons in our lives to change. While I will always be my kids’ mother, my kids won’t always need mothering. While I will always have the desire to teach, teaching is not limited to the classroom.
And each new season brings with it challenges and opportunities. Everything we thought we had figured out goes out the window as we have to start learning a new routine, system, or program again.
It's crazy that when we are young we think our time is limited to learn all that we need to learn, yet as we age, we realize seasons have a time limit, but we will always be learning, adapting, and adjusting to the new season.
I think it's exciting and terrifying all at the same time because it proves that we never arrive. We never "get there." We're always on the journey as long as we are on this side of heaven.
