5 AM - Wake up, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, yay.
6 AM - Devotions
6:15 AM - go to Middle College High School for my internship.
7 AM - Classes start.
2 PM - Classes end. Stick around to confer with Brittany (mentor) and maybe have some after school work.
4 PM - Home, begin working on lesson plans for the next day.
7 PM - Dinner with wife.
8 PM - Begin doing reading and paper for graduate classes on Friday and Saturday.
11 PM - Grade some papers and gather materials for class the next day while hanging around Becah (wife).
1 AM - Go to bed.
5 AM - restart.
For a solid 5 months or so, this is what I feel my life will look like. I have no reason to doubt that this will be this case because I have data and evidence. In fact, it will probably be harder than all this. Many MTR graduates and coaches have assured us that this will be the hardest year of our lives. There will be sacrifice, struggle, and despair. This has been made clear to me over and over again.
Spouse's night - this will be a struggle for my marriage. It will grow us as a couple but it will stretch us to our limits.
Graduate Panel at Orientation - we will lose all hope come August - November but we keep pushing through because we that is what we are here to do.
Coaches - you will fail repeatedly but it will be okay but you must fail to learn.
Union University - this course load is heavy and we are covering a ton of material in a short amount of time. If you fall behind there is almost literally no hope for you catching up.
This is what we have been bombarded with in the past week. When we look around the tables now, so many of us are just scared out of our minds. We feel way over our heads and in too deep.
These are the verses I keep shouting over myself as a security blanket throughout the day.
Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me
Matthew 11:28-30 - “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
There is a quote from Jonathan Kozol which has been on my mind recently, "some education students who want very much to teach in inner-city schools are given the impression … that working in these kinds of schools will be a painful sacrifice – all struggle, but no joy." This is from his Letters to a Young Teacher and I have been resonating with it greatly. I emailed this quote to my mentor and asked her if she had any responses to it. This was her response (I hope Brittany is OK with this) "if teaching wasn't fun and joyous I would not be doing it. Certainly anything that is worth it is hard and will require sacrifice, but oh man do I love my job. I love my students and I love watching them grow. I love being Mrs. Clark and I love that I can change lives. I know that sounds cliche but that is what a great teacher does. There is nothing like the student who does not believe in themselves who you push and mold and they then find they can do it with hard work."
This response was amazing to hear. Since coming to Memphis, I have been reminded that this is God's work. This is a worthwhile endeavor. This is noble and sacrificial. However, no one has pulled me aside and told me how much I am going to love teaching or love my kids. Perhaps because this is hard to guarantee, but it is something I need to hear.
I want to teach because I want to make a difference and in the meantime I am hoping it will be fun. Yes, I love English and teaching it is a dream come true because I am passionate about it and get to talk about it all day. Will it be fulfilling? I really hope so.
But I guess there is a bigger purpose. This is why I love that MTR focuses on a biblical worldview because focusing on God allows me to connect with him when I have these questions. This is what I found in Deuteronomy 16;15 "For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete."
I have found that joy is an elusive term in our culture. People always try to make it synonymous with pleasure, happiness, or ecstasy. It is none of those things and all of those things. Primarily, my definition of joy is that feeling when your passions align with your purpose, or put differently, when your destiny and identity are in sync. When I am where I am supposed to be and doing what I am supposed to be doing, I feel joy. When I allow the kingdom of heaven to break through into this mortal coil for the tiniest millisecond that is joy. When my wife loves me and I know that it is a hint of heavenly love, I feel joy.
So I guess my point is that there will be joy. I have a verse tattooed onto my arm, Romans 5:3-5 and it goes like this. "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."
There are too many things I love about this verse but first it acknowledges suffering. Then is says that suffering and sacrifice are worth it. That is the part MTR keeps hammering in. Perseverance will produce characters. But here is the part that God adds in. Character produces hope, a hope that does not put us to shame. Another way to say that is that it produces a hope that does not disappoint.
Hope is my favorite thing in the world. It is a fickle thing. It is hard to hold onto. Most people do not. But there is a hope. One hope in all the world, that does not disappoint. Not ever. That is the hope we have in Christ and this is because of the love has been poured into our hearts.
Let me put this all another way. There is suffering, but we endure it and that creates perseverance. Perseverance is a change in character that strengthens our core. That change is possible because of Christ and the hope of that change does not disappoint us. This hope is unshakeable because when we have changed, when we have gone through sufferings and overcome them or endured them, we are living out our purpose in God and he pours his love into our heart through the Holy Spirit which creates in us the identity of children of God. We become who God made us to be through this refining process and that is the hope of destiny. God is refining us and all of creation through redemption. His plans are unfolding.
And as I said, when purpose meets passion, there is joy.
So God's answer is this, "Yes Rory, there will be joy. An unfolding of joy as a silver curtain entering you deeper and deeper in my kingdom, a kingdom of love. A place where hope is no longer a future craving but a present reality. You are within my grace and as I walk with you through these trials we will find the joy of heaven in outstretched hands reaching for your Father's grasp. A joy of being a part of the kingdom, of participating in the new order and the new story. There is a joy in the relief effort, will you join me?"
Yes Abba, I will join you.
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