Where you go, I'll go. Where you stay, I'll stay. When you move, I'll move. I will follow you...

It has been said that life is the opposite of easy, especially for followers of the Lord. Now I am not going to sit here and profess that I am the best and most diligent follower of the Lord. Nope. Not even close. But I will say that my heart yearns to live for Him and go wherever He is calling me to go. With that being said, right now I want to bury myself in a corner and not come out until these children have graduated high school (by then maybe, just maybe they will have learned a little bit of self control)

God likes to throw curves in the road and wrenches in our plans. My plan was to be teaching at a nice Christian school or a lovely and supportive suburban school, where I would be able to teach the kiddos and learn a great deal about curriculum and best practices at the same time. My plan was to move to the cities, find said job and start my masters. Something that has taken me a LONG time to realize and understand is that my plans 99.9% of the time are different from God's plan.

Instead of teaching in the aforementioned school setting, I am teaching in the hardest, most challenging, most draining, most daunting, most...(I am out of adjectives to describe the school) setting I could possibly have imagined. The children are the worst behaved students I have ever seen. They refuse to listen, pay attention, do what is asked of them. They have no respect for any of the classroom materials, anyone's belongings, and they think they have the right to take whatever they want (including my own personal items from my desk).  I look at them and I want to scream because of their behavior. And unfortunately I sometimes have to raise my voice SO much that it truly sounds like thunder from above.

But I look at these kids and I see neglect, and abandonment. I see disconnect between the parents and the kiddos. I see anger in their faces regarding their lack of understanding in a specific topic. I hear hatred in their voices that, if I am honest, is directed at the situations they are dealing with instead of a specific person. I see their coping mechanisms as being ones of physical fighting, shouting, swearing, and general disregard for the rules and expectations. And when I stand back and step away from the classroom, I hurt for them.

Friends. Please pray for these precious young ones. Though I vent my frustrations and share all the downs and hopefully soon "ups" of this experience, these kiddos need our prayers. They need prayers for peace and compassion in their words. Prayers for strength and wisdom to appropriately cope with all the different parts of life. Prayers for love for themselves and others to enter their hearts and minds.

Thank you for joining me in this amazing and ridiculously challenging journey and for praying with me and for me along the way.