Originally from June 2016
To make a long story fit into a tidy post, I’ll say that in the beginning I was a teacher. To be precise (because I always like to be precise), I was a kindergarten and Pre-K teacher. I loved being a teacher. Teaching was life to my soul, it’s what I was created to do.
I’m a mama now. I have three children, Emily, Steven and Lauren. My husband is Greg. I always wondered if I would return to teaching when our youngest went off to kindergarten.
After all, I worked my tail off to be a teacher. I had a lot, and I mean a lot, of trouble getting into Woodring College of Education at WWU. Due to a lethal combination of anxiety and test taking, I simply could not pass the teacher’s college entrance exam.
There’s always another way in. I learned from a Woodring department advisor that if I changed my major from Elementary Education with an emphasis on English to just plain ol’ English, then I could reapply without taking the entrance exam after I earned my bachelor’s degree.
Something strange happened in the English Department. I’d always been a voracious reader, and I’d always kept a journal. But the writing aspect of being an English major both struck me and stuck with me. Beyond analyzing plot structure and character development, I soon learned that writing is how I make sense of God, myself, people and the world around me.
Lauren, our youngest, is going into kindergarten in just a few short months. I heard about a few teaching opportunities, one possible lead and a few actual job offers. I still love teaching. Why couldn’t I get excited about these teaching positions?
What I’m about to say will sound like I’m switching subjects. Or I will come across as a crazy person. Either way, I should mention that around the start of Lauren’s final year of preschool, God told me that it was time to call Mr. Turner and arrange for him to tune the old Betsy Ross Spinnet. This tug on my heart to tune the piano went on for months. But I didn’t do anything about it because it was so weird. I didn’t think it could really be from the Lord. I mean, come on, tune the piano? Why would God care about my old piano? Yet I couldn’t shake the sense that I really was supposed to call Mr. Turner. So I did.
Shortly after Mr. Turner tuned the piano, and I started playing again, the Lord spoke.
Sing a New Song.
What the heck? I don’t sing.
Fast forward to a winter retreat in Seabrook with dear friends. God took this tug on my heart, the one to Sing a New Song, and made it abundantly clear.
I never thought that Sing a New Song was supposed to mean whatever it meant in the Bible.
Except I was wrong.
Sing a new song to the LORD! Let the whole earth sing to the LORD! Sing to the LORD; praise his name. Each day proclaim the good news that he saves. Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does (Psalm 96:1-3 NLT).
In other words, the time has come for me to bid farewell to teaching, at least for now. It’s time for me to dream a new dream.
Now is the time to write.
N.
