As I said in my Last Status Update (on Facebook for those of you who actually read this on the blog) "I had an Idea..." and this is it; I have been listening to some sermons on answered prayer and Faith and how it is important to record and review how God has worked in our lives so that when we are feeling low spiritually we can bolster our faith by remembering how God has worked in the past. So my idea is that I will record on here as many stories as I can remember of God working in my life. Not all at the same time of course, rather one at a time interspersed with the other stuff from my daily life and my random musings and also probably more embryonic articles.
Here is my first offering on this new line...
I never did get around to posting my adventures from the second half of last year (2009) so tonight I am going to tell the story of what God taught me while living in Sydney.
Now you all know me; how I have a tendency to think I can do everything on my own, without any help and it'll all be easy... etc. With this attitude I took on the centenary at LAC and worked towards it for all of 2007 and the first half term of 2008, the Centenary was a grand success and God blessed amazingly. (I will put up that story on another day.) However I was not prepared for toll it took on me personally, I got to the end of term one (2008) after the Centenary (and ERO and the year 13 Camp) and I was totally drained, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, but I wasn't prepared to admit to anyone how bad it actually was. I dragged myself through every day hating every moment of it and resenting the students, (sorry kids, I really do love you, was just that my head was in a very bad place). When I got up in the morning I just wanted to go back to bed and hide, but instead I would put on my "happy, I can do any/everything" mask and would go to school and pretend that it was all good. And I dragged myself to the end of the year and felt like the worst teacher in the world, and everyday I was telling myself, "I don't want to be here, this is too hard, God get me out of here." When Grad came and they gave me the Hari dedication along with Tom Lin I felt like I didn't deserve it and shouldn't have got it.
Then God in His mercy made it work that I could have a good long holiday and 'refill' my resources and I climbed back up where the world is a happy colourful place and not a hint of grey is anywhere. Around May I started to feel bored so I sent out around 20 copies of my CV, looking for a non-teaching job, most of them didn't even reply. One day I'm in the middle of praying 'God I need a job' and mid-sentence the phone rings, it was Peter Kilgour offering me two terms teaching in Sydney, I prevericated cause that was totally not the job I had in mind, but I knew I was going to say yes because how much more obvious/immediate an answer to prayer can there be?
So August 3 I arrived in Sydney and the next day I started teaching, and it was horrible! The kids were are not like LAC kids, they don't want to work/learn/think, they didn't respect or even like their teachers, they made rude personal comments purposely loud enough so that you can hear and they challenged me continually. The school was somewhat in disarray because of a major building project that was going on and coming in half way through the year it is difficult to make real friendships with the staff. So day three comes along and I'm sitting in my classroom praying "God this is a horrible mistake, what am I doing here?" and if my getting the job had not been such an obvious answer to prayer I would have quit then and there. I look up from praying and there was a poster left by the previous teacher "Jeremiah 29:11; "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." " And every time I felt discouraged over the next week it seemed that I just had to look up and there was that verse blazing at me.
I knew that I couldn't let myself go back to the grey place I had been in the previous year and it was trying to push it's way back into my mind. However just before I left Auckland I went to a series of meetings at North Harbour Church by Janet and Jerry Paige about praising God in all things, so I purposely started to shut the grey thoughts out, cut them off as soon as I found them winding there dreary way through my mind by saying 'No, I'm not going to think like that anymore', and looking for things to thank God about for my situation. And there are lots of things, a well built, affordable house, a good flat mate, I'd been lent everything I needed, Danijela lived only 20 mins away on the train, a fantastic cell group that met in the classroom next to my house... etc etc etc.
My classes got only marginally better, there were good days and bad days, but I coped so much better and actually came to enjoy the school and the students in-spite of their behaviours. Eventually my contract was up and I went home to New Zealand before moving on to the states. But, I'm glad I had the experience, I learned a lot about being a teacher, and more importantly I learned about praising and thanking God in all situations.
So when the grey days come, block the thoughts that pull you down, imagine a mental hand ("Speak to the hand cause the heads not listening"), a flaming firewall that burns those thoughts to ashes, say "no" out loud, whatever works for you, just don't let them grab hold - they're like letches they drain you. And thank God for something, anything, it doesn't matter if it is the same thing you thanked Him for 3 mins ago, just thank him again. And you might have to do it every 3 mins to start with (I did) but eventually the time between attacks lengthens and you can go whole hours without discouraging thoughts and then it becomes almost habitual and your cutting the grey thoughts down automatically and replacing them with bright colourful thanks. Even though there may be some grey and even black days in the future you can keep the grey and the black out of your soul. The world stays a happy content place and even though circumstances don't change somehow you are better able to deal with them.
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