In Search of the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie: And Another Year Ends...

I measure my years from August to May, with June and July being a lovely eight week pause to real life. It's always been that way, for as long as I can remember. I've never had a year without school being the central focus and measurement of time since the age of five. This year was great. So. freakin'. great. It wasn't the easiest year in some ways, and in other ways, it was.

The week before going back to school, I really struggled with being a working mom. The first year of Sawyer's life, we had no choice but for me to work. The second year, well, we could feasibly get through life on only Daniel's salary, however hard it would be. It was my choice to work. Talk about Mom Guilt. I was a mess. If I were British, I would say I was a bloody mess (yes, we've been watching a lot of BBC lately). I prayed and prayed that if I were supposed to stay home with Sawyer ASAP, that feeling would not go away, so I would know to quit my job and begin the season of my life as a SAHM. I was pretty sure that is what would happen- our church is very small and the mom culture there is almost 100% stay-at-home mom or work-at-home mom, which creates this huge, painful identity struggle for me, that I truly don't feel like blogging about just yet. :)

But anyhow, that feeling went away completely. Instead, something really different happened. I felt freedom to teach. It was/is such a beautiful feeling. I could walk into my classroom, and I could love my kids- Sawyer + 110 teenagers, and I didn't have to feel any guilt about it. Not that the school year went perfectly- there was definitely some spiritual warfare going on all around that decision to work, but we survived. And I loved my kids. End of the story. Our culture, even our Christian culture, seeks to make things more complex than that. A movement has been happening for decades to allow women to "have it all"- the career, the family, the individualism, etc. Unfortunately, that just can't happen. If you work, if you TEACH, your job demands part of your heart. You won't survive as a teacher unless you are willing to give your heart to your kids and your work. If you do, you will be a mundane, tolerated, miserable teacher- not one who changes lives. If you are a mom, your role demands part of your heart. You won't survive as a mom unless you are willing to give your heart to your kids and your parenting. If you do survive, your kids will be forever lacking the mother/child relationship. And this is where it gets complicated- both roles could easily require ALL of my heart. I have to divide time, love, attention, focus, etc. And ~~sometimes~~, most times, it's not enough. I wonder if I'm really making a difference in either "job". The easy answer, the most "Christian" answer sometimes, is to stay home. I mean, your biological kids are more important than those other kids, right?

Wrong *at least for me*. God loves my kids at school just as much as he loves Sawyer. I feel called to be in that classroom, at least for the time being, to let Him love them through me. It just so happens that He has worked it out so that we have FANTASTIC childcare- right across the street. She loves Sawyer through Jesus and so completely amazingly. It just so happens that I get every holiday, every afternoon, every weekend off. I work 180 of 365 days each year. I work two blocks away, so approximately four minutes a day are wasted in commute. If any of those things were different, maybe I would be home right now. But God wants me at school, and he's worked out all of the details. And on the days when I'm not enough for Sawyer, when I'm not enough for my students, that's when God shows up and proclaims my calling yet again.

Me (never enough) + God (always enough)= Mom/Teacher Enough

So that's it, uncomplicated- I can't have it all, but I will survive, and God fills in the gaps and makes it good. That being said, I am looking forward to teaching for my FOURTH year next year, and here are a few pictures of the last few weeks of school :)