You're Going to Be Okay

 I found this quote from my notebook, taken from a book I read last year, the year before, and am now currently starting again. It has great reminders, hopeful inspiration and encouraging words. That's why I love it and gravitate towards it, as well as her other books. 

"So I want to lean in and whisper to you, 'Dear sister, trust that there is more than you can see. Trust that what you're doing makes a difference. Trust that one day you will get to turn the chair around and see fully.' And I think God smiles with us as we sit with him at the table of life too." -Holly Gerth; You're Going to be Okay

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I was thinking of my old classroom. The one that was small, had thin walls, had a sink, a view of the street and some trees, people's homes next door (but not of Mt. Diablo, which I had in my other classroom and loved the view). Everything about that environment was nothing like the one prior. 

I had a whiteboard behind my desk so I would take up the invitation to write on it- reminders, the day's date, a Russian word of the day for inspiration, etc. I had my own desk, a place for my things, and would come back to it throughout the day, and later a desktop computer that worked. 

My view wasn't of the street but of the classroom, of the other whiteboard that wasn't too large and the TV like projector screen. It was a plain classroom, so I decided to make posters to enhance the classroom look from dull to inviting and fun or at least interesting. I decorated these signs like 'You Matter' in inspiration from the coffee shop Journeys Coffee as well as relating to Physics which was the Special Ed class I was in. As well as science posters having to do with Chemistry, Biology and Physics with a saying on them, or a picture of a tree and quotes and names of scientists. 

I looked at these the whole year and it helped make the classroom look a little more vibrant. I didn't realize all the things I was doing and keeping everything together. From staying organized with all the to do's of students' tests and assignments, to helping facilitate the crazy, loud and usually uncontrolled Physics class, to giving lesson plan ideas to the teacher as a way for myself to stay motivated as well as inspired, to staying professional when everyone highly disliked the teacher and there was tons of gossip, division and animosity and just trying to stay positive and neutral about everything, to completing my school work and readings and assignments for my busy and full class load of my Masters program, to trying to stay healthy, active, inspired and spiritually enriched on the daily knowing very well I needed all the graces to put up with some hard students and an exhausting and soul sucking teacher, to put it bluntly.

I feel now I'm able to 'see more fully' like Gerth writes, especially after some time and now being at another school- the environment, the students, everything is totally different. I didn't realize what I would miss and how I would interpret all that I was doing, learning and even enjoying in the thick of it all.