School's Out and I ramble.........

School is now officially out for the summer and I am so glad. I do not know what I am going to do this summer other than the usual.......... read, sleep late, watch baseball, spend time with family, and maybe take a road trip. My grandmother has been sick all week. I really hate for her to be sick. She is suffering from congestive heart failure and degenerative arthritis. Monday, after work, I had to drive her to Jackson for a Cat Scan to make sure she had not had another stroke. Thankfully, she had not. But, the whole ride to Jackson and back, each bump I hit in the road caused her to wince in pain. She could not turn her neck at all. Mama told me her neck was better today, so that's good. Please be in prayer for her.

Tuesday night, I attended our Spring "Renew Your Spirit" Conference at our church. The speaker was Esther Burroughs from South Carolina. She was awesome and also, quite funny. I enjoyed listening to her and fellowshipping with the women in our community. We had a wonderful meal of chicken salad sandwiches, pimento cheese sandwiches, fruit, crunchy romaine salad, and brownies. It was delicious and I could have eaten a dozen of those pimento cheese sandwiches. I bought several of her books to read this summer. One that I am looking forward to reading is about the legacy we leave our children. It has lots of suggestions on ways you can pass on your faith to your children, mainly through your traditions such as having devotion every morning and praying together. One thing that I started doing about a year ago was praying with my children at night. I wish I had been doing this forever, but hindsight is 20/20 right? Anyway, some of the sweetest times with my children have been those 5 minutes before they go to sleep when we pray together. I am so amazed at God working in their young hearts.

I think that this summer is going to give me a much needed break. I am looking forward to not teaching (even though this was not what I wanted in the beginning). But, I am warming up to it. I think I have made the right decision. In the beginning, I felt a lot of emotions because I had finally gotten to teach what I always wanted to teach. Then, I got my contract and I was being moved to Junior High. This was not what I wanted. In the end, several reasons caused me to decide not to teach anymore. I just hope my students know it was not because of them. I think it will be interesting to see who actually teaches high school history next year. I have spent the last couple of months realizing that some people are not what they seem to be and that a lot of what people tell you is not the whole truth at all. This is a sad fact of life. When making decisions in life, one should rely only on God and no one else. Through much prayer, I discovered that it was time for me to move on. Right now, as far as working goes, I am only planning to help my husband with his business.

As you can tell, I have a lot that I need to vent. I still have lots of feelings about leaving teaching that I still cannot talk about. Graduation night, I managed to shed some tears while a couple of my students were giving their speeches. In fact, one thing stuck with me........ who are we trying to please when we succeed? Most of the time when you do something right, no one notices at all. I love that because it is so true. I know that God is always watching and He weighs our hearts, not just what we say and do. He looks within to see the person we really are, not who the world thinks we are. He sees our worries, fears, hurts, etc. and it matters to Him because it matters to us. I know that He has held me the last couple of months and I am so grateful.