Sunlight pours through the window, golden and dusty as I wipe down the board with a stained yellow rag. It’s late afternoon and the cleaning cart is rumbling gently down the hallway. I hope they will be slow and give me my last few moments in this space. The essays are turned in, final remarks scrawled in the rubric margins, and well-wishes scribbled in yearbooks. I slide a rolling chair back into place and wipe some remaining eraser crumbs from a desk in the back, smiling because I know who sat here last.
Where did the time go?
I’m transported back to my first day. At this point, teaching is not new to me, but teaching at my alma mater adds a certain feeling of responsibility. Twenty four freshmen are staring at me, and I’m staring back at them. I fiddle with the notes on my podium, trying to hide that my hands are shaking.
Who let me do this? Where is the adult? Oh! Right. It’s me!
In my last teaching role, I worked harder than I ever have, and I also saw my own tendencies to idolize work on full display. God was merciful in allowing me to see where I had become self-reliant, and He did that partly through Christian community. ❤️
He also gave me colleagues who would become some of the best friends I have ever made.
He gave me a place to be mentored by people who really care about me.
I’ve been feeling like I’m leaving something special behind, and while that may be true, I’m grateful for the numerous gifts of grace Jesus has given me in the classroom. These are gifts and lessons that will last longer than any google form course evaluation.
These are the eternal gifts I get to keep.
So…what now?
Well, God has certainly been up to something, as He always is. I shouldn’t be shocked when confronted with the fact that the Lord sees the desires of my heart, but I still am. And I’m grateful! The way things have worked out, the timing of it all, it still astounds me. I have a new role I’m excited about! God is so good!
These days you can find me working at my local church, serving with friends in both the High School and Worship ministries. It’s all very new, and some days I feel like I am bad at EVERYTHING, but I’ve been encouraged by the promise God gives in Isaiah 43:19 that He is able to do “a new thing.” I made a new friend the other day who reminded me that it’s totally okay to be new at something, and that pep talk helped me remove some of the pressure I had been feeling. As I learn to do a new thing, Jesus is doing a new thing in me! He will be my river in the desert, my way in the wilderness.
I Knew You
I was speaking a couple of weeks ago on Galatians chapter 3 to our high school students and landed on a verse I am just now starting to understand:
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith…” (Galatians 3:26).
In his message to the Galatian churches, Paul reminds his listeners that externals, accolades, rule-keeping and the like do not make us sons and daughters of God, but rather the work of Jesus on the cross.
When we put our faith in Jesus, we get a new identity of son or daughter.
This isn’t the first time God speaks about identity in Scripture. I love how God tells the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer. 1:5). The next few words outline how the Lord had placed a call on Jeremiah’s life to act as a prophet to the nations, but even before that, Jeremiah was intimately known by the Most High God.
I admitted to the youth group that I had experienced something of an identity crisis when I decided to leave teaching a few months ago, and that was true. There was an exhilarating sense of freedom and adventure in deciding on a different path, and a great peace in choosing to follow the plans I believe the Lord had been speaking over me for about a year, but there was also the fear of leaving what was known, and the pain of losing the identity of “teacher” that I’ve grown so used to.
Heck, Jesus was a teacher.
But the words of Jeremiah encourage me. My status as one deeply known and loved by God existed before I ever (unwisely) graded 50 papers in a single night. I was His before my name showed up in anybody’s class schedule. And while God may have allowed me to start teaching—just as He is allowing me leave it—my most important role will always be daughter.
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As we clean the last few things from my room, Daryl, my dearest friend and partner teacher, helps me take down my knight statue from the top of the bookshelf.
A year into teaching at this school, a colleague gifted it to me. A small figure, made of metal and about a foot high, he’s supposed to represent the idea that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” but his original pen is long-gone and a hot pink gel-pen has taken its place. He actually used to belong to my old English teacher–the one who made Jesus real to me and helped me see the story of the Bible as the blueprint to all the best love stories ever told.
“He needs to go with you,” she says. “He can stand watch in your little garden.” We hug and cry, and I carry the little knight to the hallway.
As I close the door, golden light streams into the classroom, into the place where God has met me and taught me of His faithfulness over and over again.
I hold my little knight statue close, a token of the past to remind me that God will still be faithful and good in the future. Here I raise my ebenezer to all God has done in this place, and all He has done for me. ❤️
Kayley Chartier 