Extra goodnight hugs

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I wrote my last post early this morning. When I came back from lunch and heard about the tragedy in Connecticut, I realized how ominous it must have sounded. It’s just something that has been on my heart for a long while: what my purpose is and what life means when it is seemingly cut short. I always wax sentimental at this time of year, as I try to steel my nerves for the grief cloud that is sure to hover over me in late-January near the anniversary of my brother’s death.

I haven’t turned on the television or looked at Twitter since I got home from work, because I’m trying to insulate my heart from a nonstop stream of details about today’s school shooting. We spent the evening after dinner addressing 24 teacher gifts. I was planning to do it later this weekend, but today seemed fitting to pause and thank them for all that they do, each and every day. I want to hug the kids tightly and promise to protect them always, but I know that is a promise that I cannot keep. At some point, I have to release them into the Lord’s care and just … trust. It’s a terrifying notion to be reminded that I am incapable of keeping them safe 24/7.

So, I will hug them a little snugger and kiss their foreheads a little bit longer and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for another day … together.

Purposeful life

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I’ve questioned the notion before that life will work out hunky-dory, if only we love God and behave ourselves, because, at the risk of sounding like a pessimist, I just don’t believe that we are guaranteed happy endings. For as long as I can remember, well-meaning religious people have been quoting Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV).

What they leave out, however, is the next verse, which talks about being “… conformed to the image of his Son,” namely, Jesus. The chapter goes on to say that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love, and that is true, but it doesn’t mean things will be easy-breezy.

I realize that Jesus (and his uncannily blonde mother, Mary, for that matter), look like well-groomed models who just stepped out of a Pantene commercial in the paintings, but Jesus led a hard life. Besides the fact that such everyday luxuries as motor vehicles, air conditioning and Crocs had not yet been invented, Jesus was not wealthy by any stretch, and he was insulted, ignored, betrayed and ultimately killed. He apparently lost his earthly dad sometime in his teens or 20s. His own neighbors rejected his message.

We all have many, many blessings for which to be thankful.  I have experienced exquisite joy in life; please don’t get me wrong and think that I’m raining on the religion parade. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think our lives are just about us. I don’t think that life is just about my accomplishments and dreams and the legacy that I leave behind. What about people who die without a so-called legacy? What about the young mother who dies of cancer, or the stillborn baby or the elder who lives alone? I’ve just been struggling with the idea that sometimes, life’s purpose may be larger than us. Our lives are part of a bigger picture, and not necessarily portraits, in and of themselves.

Consider Job’s first batch of children: he had seven sons and three daughters. In a freak windstorm, all 10 of them were crushed to death in a house collapse. That tragedy was just one of a litany of calamities that happened to Job. If you read the whole story, you learn that God restored his family and gave him 10 more children later in life. (Which, by the way, makes me think that perhaps giving birth to 20 children was part of his wife’s punishment for telling Job to curse God and die (Job 2:9-10), but I digress.)

Were the lives of Job’s first 10 children pointless? For lack of a better term, they really just seem like pawns in the overall strategy. That’s a tough pill to swallow, to think that my life might simply be a lesson illustration. I want to accomplish great feats in life, but what I’ve been learning in recent years, as trials and detours keep chipping away at my pride, is that I need to be content with whatever God has in store for me. Sometimes, my goals don’t pan out the way I expect them do, but that doesn’t mean that I should hang it all up and quit trying. I will keep striving, pursuing and reaching toward my dreams, and I will thank God for letting me play a role, however significant – or not – in his story.

Back to school

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A quite unflattering impersonation of Prof. McGonagall, but it got me toward the front of the line for the HP7 midnight book release!

A quite unflattering impersonation of Prof. McGonagall, but it got me toward the front of the line for the HP7 midnight book release!

There is something that I have wanted to do ever since I returned from China in the mid-90s … and no, I don’t mean sing karaoke or eat stir-fried scorpions. (I would be open to karaoke, but scorpions are a never-again, forever and ever, amen.)

What I’ve really wanted to do is teach a bona fide college class! I have tutored, taught a non-credit ESL (English as a Second Language) class and guest lectured, but it’s not the same as being the “teacher of record.” Besides, when I finish my doctorate, it will carry more weight if I also have teaching experience.

(Every time I hear the word “professor,” I think of Minerva McGonagall, one of my absolute favorite literary characters and a mother-figure heroine in the Harry Potter tales.)

I submitted my resume to the local community college after I finished my master’s degree in 2008, but I think the Lord had my back by not letting me get my foot in the door at that time. After all, my life went topsy-turvy in 2009 (the backstory is in the Grief category, if you are unfamiliar and care to peruse it), and then I got the hair-brained idea to start my doctorate in 2010.

After all this time, I decided to update my resume on file and basically reapply earlier this year. Lo & behold, they had an opening for an adjunct (part-time) Government instructor! One thing led to another, and I’ve known for a few weeks that I would be teaching in the spring, but I didn’t want to say anything until it was officially-official.

Instructor's edition!

Instructor’s edition!

Well, today I picked up my faculty ID card, so I’ll say that’s official! 🙂 I’m going to be a real prof!

I will actually be teaching a dual-credit course in Texas Government at a local high school two early mornings a week. I am looking forward to it! It feels a bit like a pay-it-forward opportunity, since I began my college experience as a dual-credit Economics student the summer before my senior year. This will be a real college course; it just so happens to be on the high school campus, and the students will also get credit for h.s. Government. Win-win!

Best Supporting Actor (Prayer Devotional for the week of December 9, 2012)

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When you visit an art gallery (or even a friend’s home) and admire the pictures on the wall, do you ever think about what hardware they used to hang the portraits? When they introduce the starting lineup at a football game, who gets more cheers: the quarterback or the center? When you tour a new home, does the realtor show off the master bedroom or the water heater closet? When you watch the Academy Awards, who gets more accolades: the Best Actor in a Lead Role or the Best Actor in a Supporting Role?

Some of our lives resemble the portraits, quarterbacks, master bedroom and Best Lead Actor. Others of us are the framing hardware, center position and water heater closet … we play a Supporting Role in this drama called Life. Don’t feel bad, though, because these supporting roles are still very important to the plot. After all, how could we admire the portraits without the nail to display them? What would the quarterback do without the center to hike the ball? You get the idea.

As we continue the next few weeks of advent season, there is one very important supporting role that needs to be mentioned, because without him, there would be no Christmas story. Joseph’s ancestry helped to validate Jesus’ lineage in a time when women were seldom even mentioned in genealogy (Luke 3:23-38, for example). Without Joseph, Mary would likely have been stoned to death – or at the very least, outcast – for becoming pregnant out of wedlock (Matthew 1:19).

Joseph worked in a blue collar trade (carpentry), and although I don’t know a lot about the betrothal process back in those days, who wouldn’t want their daughter to marry a humble, hard-working man with a steady job? His life work was a supporting role, so perhaps that’s another reason why God chose him and Mary as Jesus’ parents, because he was willing to serve in that capacity. Unfortunately, we know very little about Joseph’s life, and he isn’t mentioned beyond Jesus’ preteen years, so perhaps he died relatively young. The typical lifespan in those days was much shorter than it is today, and besides, carpentry can be dangerous. At any rate, Joseph had a role to fulfill in the Messiah story, and he performed it beautifully. He accepted Mary as his wife, despite the cultural mores of the time, and raised Jesus as his own.

Like Joseph, not all of us will be lead actors, but that doesn’t mean that God left us out of his storyline. We each have a purpose to fulfill! Be open to the role God has for you, even if it goes against the grain of what you might have expected.