Today my thoughts are on the sheer and utter panic I have about school right now. Since/Sense I started school almost 30 days ago (holy moly that is amazing and I survived- if you were here we would celebrate over a margarita..) it has been a roller coaster of emotions. The ride is fun but scary and dark sometimes and other times when we crest a hill and I can see a view I had not seen, glory its the best...We have highs and lows about a 100 times a day, not joking. Most days I know without a shadow of the doubt I am doing the absolute BEST thing for my kids. BEST. I have seen a transformation in my ADHD high driven anxiety kid and a full in fall to my knees in thankfulness he is home for my other son. It is good, it is right, and I really do (most days) love having them home.
Here is todays "Thing..."
I have learning disabilities. Adult learning disabilities is a "thing." You don't out grow your learning disabilities- you just learn over the course of your life how to navigate them. I know I have them, and 20 (ok or more but do we have to go there?) years ago the testing is not nearly where it is now. I actually think I have ADHD, anxiety, and learning disabilities. Self diagnosing at its finest people. As I have been thrown into the world of diagnosing with the boys so many times I listen and I think... whoa that's me. I think if I were in school today with the aids they have I would have had an IEP or 504 plan and I think....maybe I would of gone to college. My dream was to be a counselor (I had to spell check my dream...just saying.) but school was so so so so so so hard so so so so hard. Like for real guys, I would study and study and study and we would celebrate if I could stay out of the 60's on a test. It kind of makes me anxious talking about it, not because I am embarrassed but because I remember how sick I would feel before every test and how much I hated being called on and how awkward it was when a fellow student would ask me a question and I NEVER knew the answer no matter how simple it might of been.
I can tell you so many reasons why I should of failed, I can tell you stories of beloved teachers seeing me barely make it, coming to their class rooms after class in tears because I knew I was failing and literally CHANGING my grade in front me.
Coach C "Come here Beth, look at that grade..." I stared at the computer screen and in the excel program laid a 67- fail. Tears streaming down my face...Coach C "Beth why are you crying, look at that grade.." Delete, Delete, and watched as his big fingers change that grade to a 76. I just stared at him, "Beth, you got this- I see you. You will be just fine."
I can tell you of sleepless nights, sweats and anxious fears on projects due, homework unfinished and test scores I knew were coming my way. It was like I was frozen inside a box I didn't fit in and I didn't choose. I was capable of more, wanted more, dreamed of more, but I was frozen feeling like I didn't have what it took to get to the next step to see my dreams become a reality. I don't hang my hat on that...BUT JESUS.
And thank Jesus I had parents who understood, embraced, and encouraged me right where I was at. They saw the difficulties and my dad would so often remember his own struggles with school.
My struggles followed me to a small Bible school in Colorado where I barely made it by but grades were not that important (yay for me...). I have stories of writing papers on the wrong people...y'all, this one has to be shared with you with a cup of coffee in hand. And then after three years of living in Colorado I moved back home (broken hearted after a failed relationship.... PRAISE JESUS) and signed up for community college. I thought, its time- I am going to chase my dreams. I took the assessment test to see what classes I could skip and what classes I needed. I didn't even place. They started me in classes that kids who had failed high school were taking. You want to talk about humbling...glory Jesus. I did it though, I walked into the vocab class with pride. I was going to do it.
Its is how I knew I loved Kevin. (This story is not about how I met Kevin ((Although a glorious one))....But I did know I loved him when we were just beginning our dating and I was getting supplies for school and my brilliant, so very smart engineering soon to be husband asked me "so what classes are you taking..." Hmm lets see "Vocab 1, Beginners Math 101 (the actual name)..." Oh yes, so very proud of these classes. He didn't even miss a beat...he still chose me and to this day I'll love him even more.
Last night I told him about my blog I wrote and I said "I still can't in my head get so many words right..."(Since/Sense) I had every intention to google it and change it...but life. It is like a blank in my mind, no matter how many times I concentrate on certain words to memorize my brain draws a blank...but on so so so many things. I wonder if I actually know it and its literally a disconnect in my brain where its buried there but I can't bring it forward or if it is that something in my brain can't retain certain information...I don't know. So I had every intention to go back and fix "since to sense" in my last blog post. Which led Kevin and I to this conversation and my total freak out moment...
I told Kevin " I don't get it, if I loved teaching and it came easy to me I would do it in a heart beat. I love having them home, I love the schedule, but I am not a teacher... Its like God placed me in a surgical room and asked me to perform surgery and I am screaming 'uh...I'm not a SURGEON'..." And I know "BUT JESUS" but y'all this really is a Moses moment of inadequateness...I just don't know, my brain is just struggling and in all honesty right now I am learning right along side of my 2nd graders, but I am not sure what I will do when they pass me by and please Jesus in your grace and mercy let them have their daddies brain and soar pass this mom.
I have dreams, and as ironic as it is writing is a huge one and one of my greatest disabilities is in writing (Oh glory I just heard all of y'all sigh and say..."now that makes sense/since"). Bless it, but Jesus. I am not sure what our future is, I do know in all of history and every story I read Jesus always provides, always shows the way, so I am believing that with my whole heart today as I show up once again in my surgical room and look at my sweet children and think "I am not surgeon please help me not damage them.." I know this seems dramatic, but glory it is a good picture of reality.
God always call us to the impossible. Always. I am not sure what our future will be, how God will provide in the next seasons of our life and days of school. I know whatever it will be it will be good, but there are days when it seems extremely scary. Jesus is asking me to be in a scary place right now, on so many different levels. We have some scary testing and diagnosing going on ( in His timing don't worry sharing will happen...) and most mornings I walk into our makeshift classroom (surgical room) and the only words I can utter beneath my deep breathing and pounding heart beat is "Jesus, show up..." And I pick up the scalpel and begin to cut....
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," Says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher then your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 54:17
