The greatest of these...

One of my favorite quotes, which I discovered on Pinterest one day, is “You can’t change people; you can only love them.” I have found that to be very true this year.

This has been a really tough school year. I had 70 literature students, I am the yearbook adviser and had 10 people on my staff, I’m the National Honor Society adviser, and I spent November to February pretty consistently sick with “morning sickness.” (I use quotes because this time it was 24/7 and lasted for months.) And from February til now it was off and on, plus exhaustion and being uncomfortable and not sleeping because of heartburn and leg cramps. All that to say, I kind of have no idea how I made it through the school year. I’m still not done grading and the last day of class was yesterday.

I also had the new and hurtful experience of people talking about me behind my back. Some of it was due to things I could have handled better, and some of it was due to things I believe I did exactly right. The worst part of being gossiped about was not being given a chance to explain, where in some circumstances the person talking had literally no idea what they were talking about because they weren’t connected at all directly to the situation, and in other instances, I wasn’t given the chance to apologize specifically or make things right.

Yesterday I apologized in general to one of my classes for something and asked for a fresh start if any of them have me again next year. I thought it was appropriate but I still lament the fact that no one talked to me directly about any of it.

So what does any this have to do with the Pinterest quote?

I wish I had loved all my students better. I can make them take notes on genres, I can drill MLA into their little brains, we can dissect poetry together and find themes common to humanity and read and critique Shakespeare, but like the apostle Paul says, if I have not love, I am but a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.

And there are some students that I wish I could change, that I could force to see Truth, because I love them fiercely and they know it, but I can’t make them change. They can just know that I will always be there for them no matter what, and I need to get out of my own way and let the Holy Spirit work.

I do love all my students but I don’t think I showed that very well. As a teacher, I believe that it’s more important than anything I have to say about literature to reach a student’s heart but I know now looking back that some students got the noisy gong this year.

Anyway, this is rambly (my blog is aptly named!) and vague because I can’t explain further without divulging things I don’t want to divulge but that is my biggest regret this year. My wonderful husband allowed me to cry all the way home from school yesterday without trying to fix anything. He knew I needed to get it out. It’s actually really hard sometimes to know that all you can do is love someone but because God is God, He can take our meager offerings and turn it into something amazing. I am trying to have faith that He will, and I am praying that next year, and now, I will love better and trust Him more.

Even though this will annoy my little brother, I’m going to end this entry with some of my favorite Mumford and Sons lyrics because I think they reflect the Gospel in a beautiful way and also communicate how I feel about this year:

From “After the Storm”

“And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears,

and love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.”