Coming from a private school to a public setting was initially a culture shock for me to say the least. But, I was still young, new to teaching, full of spunk, and had dreams of changing the world! Then, I was given a classroom of kids who, for the most part, were neglected, abused, or shockingly poor. Their lifestyles and appreciation for education were vastly different from what I had previously witnessed. I had to ask myself, “Do these kids even have a chance in life?” “Yes, yes they do,” I quickly decided. That year, I had the privilege to teach a special young lady. I’ll never forget her angelic…
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In Coming Warning!
I distinctly remember my mother’s warning, “If you don’t stop that, I’m gonna wear you out! Do you hear me?” How many times have we been watching a movie and heard the sound of intense clicking. We knew right away, as the author intended, what was about to happen. Our hearts raced as our eyes were directed to the ticking bomb. We anxiously sat on the edge of our seats until the main character successfully dismantled the device. Thus, he saved the people without a moment to spare because he had given attention to the warning! How many times have we hobbled into a doctor’s office with a pain in…
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Left Behind
Be the Light that Leads the Way to Freedom! Oskar Schindler is well known for his bravery, tenacity, and dedication because he was willing to lose all of his wealth and risk his own life in order to help roughly 1,200 Jews escape certain death in German concentration camps. Today, he and his wife Emilie, are buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. They were named Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1993. Harriet Tubman was born into slavery. She was beaten, mentally abused, and acquired a life-long head injury from one of her various masters. Yet, Tubman began to receive premonitions from God which led her to…
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Education Is Vital
After Covid-19 hit, every student was quickly given a Chromebook, a password, and a set of written directions. The students had an extremely short period of time to learn how to work their new Chrome books. To their bewilderment, quite a few students lived beyond the point of internet service. This required the students to work out of a packet and hand in work pages weekly. Teachers were directed to take attendance, upload daily lessons, and have daily live classes. Unfortunately, they received a minimal prior explanation on how to create lessons online or how to present live lessons. Students and teachers were doing a whole lot of self-teaching. Needless…
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There’s Not Just Ten Commandments!
If I asked you to, you could probably list all (or almost all) of the Ten Commandments. Just for fun, you might want to grab a pen and see if you can list them all this very minute…or maybe not right now, right? We Christians feel really good about ourselves when we can mention that we are abiding by those Ten Commandments. However, we forget to stop and consider that the Ten Commandments in which God gave to Moses are not all the commandments that he has given to us. How many times has he asked us to go, to wait, to listen, to be still, to stop, to turn…
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A Recipe for 2021
Many people refer to 2020 as the worst year of their lives. By all accounts, it may have been. There WAS a shortage of toilet paper you know! In all seriousness, I’m sure some people felt like it was their worst year because they lost a loved one, maybe more, to Covid. Others may have lost their jobs and had a hard time feeding their families. Oddly enough, at the same time, some professions required their workers to be profoundly overworked, exposed, and exhausted. Those who didn’t work were hid away in their homes both day and night dealing with moody spouses or the fact that they had no spouse…
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Faith Under His Wings
If you keep cutting corners, you’ll end up with a circle! My son, Isaac, just gifted me with a delightful dose of his daily wisdom. More times than not, his bits of knowledge are hilarious. However, today this piece of enlightenment seemed to mesh quite well with my blog thoughts. The children of Israel wandered in the desert for forty years. Most able-bodied people could have walked the distance in 11 to 14 days! You might ask, “Heaven’s to Betsy, what took them so long?” I can explain, they were cutting corners and “walking in circles,” so to speak! The Israelites kept groaning and giving God reasons why they couldn’t…
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How Do You Measure Success?
How do you measure your personal success? Perhaps you are only happy with yourself, if you meet the days quota at work. Success to you might mean making the most money possible in one day. For some occupations, success means arriving back home alive. Students would call an A+ on a test a success. How we measure our own success could potentially be causing us unnecessary daily stress and feelings of failure …even hopelessness. Yet, where does it all start? Each evening we go to bed with a mental checklist of things that we think we NEED to accomplish throughout the next day. Let’s imagine yours looks something like this:…
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The Apple of His Eye
I’ll never forget one specific day when I took my sixteen month old daughter to church. I was so proud of her. She was dressed in a frilly, pink eyelet dress that was accompanied by a soft white sweater. She had the biggest shiny brown eyes. Tiny auburn ringlets bounced all around her little head. She had chubby cheeks and a smile that would melt hearts. I just knew everyone wished they had a daughter as beautiful as mine! I, myself, had dreamed of a daughter like her for as long as I could remember. One of my former classmates visited church that day and brought her little girl that…
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What’s Your Battle Cry?
May I politely ask, what is your battle cry? What do you shout when you are in trouble? Okay, maybe you don’t shout literally, but who do you call upon in your time of need? Who do you cry out to help you in sickness or loneliness? Who do you call upon when you have problems with your children? Who do you call upon when your husband has decided he doesn’t want to be married to you anymore? Who do you call upon when you don’t have money for the pile of bills on the table? A battle cry is known to be used to rally a group of soldiers…
