DO Break the Ice!!!

In honor of a beloved Childhood game, I simply say... don't live your life like a Hasbro game! :)

Okay here is the deal. I've been teaching in an Alternative High School program in a pretty urban area. Now if you know anything about urban areas you know they are extremely diverse, any typically have very high low income population (especially in the public schools). If you know anything about alternative schools, you'd know that the population of students one works with is, well, atypical to say the least.

I ALWAYS thought I wanted to teacher High School kids with emotional and behavioral disabilities, a place exactly like this! Well...let's just say I've changed my mind, but not my heart.

The past 6 weeks at this school has been really rough, challenging, disheartening, heart breaking, boring, and just straight up hard!!!! I have been called who knows what...was told student's can't stand me... one boy talked about stabbing me in the face...I've been tested and tested and tested...and the list goes on. Basically, now I really want to teach ity bities that just adore me, I don't think this is a population of student that I could last teaching...

There's a catch...because there's always a catch!!! AND God works all things together for our good.

For every challenge that I've faced in this classroom with these students, the victories and the blessing of having the opportunity to be a part of their lives have been more than worth the long drive, the bad attitudes and every other curve ball that's been thrown my way.

The very same students that have ridiculed me and hardened their hearts towards me are now my students. I don't say that possessively at all, but in the sense that there is a relationship there. Once I broke the ice with them, and showed them that I was a real person, with real emotions, and real problems just like them...SLOWLY....and I mean slooowwwwly they have cracked open the door to their lives and let me get a toe in the threshold. It's been so amazing!

My heart is so for my 8 crazy teenagers! It's such a blessing to see them share their lives in their writing. I've learned so much through chicken scratch and crumpled, ripped papers. It's all worth the squinting and decoding to learn what a student is passionate about, how they have been molded to the person they are today, and who they want to become. They all have such sad, hard, heartbreaking stories. At the same time they all have such amazing goals and a genuine desire to be better, start over, and make a difference.

I love young people who just exude determination.

With all odds against them, they don't give up. They persevere (funny that I taught a mini-lesson on perseverance today).

All this to say that, yes, I have more of an idea that I more than likely would more so enjoy teaching the little booger face munchkins. At the same time, I just love these kids. They grabbed my heart! I'm so sad to be leaving them soon. I can't believe how they have touched my life in such a way in such a short time.

Now, the same punks that made me come home crying the first week of school, are the smiling faces I joke around with before class begins. The kids that said "I can't stand Ms. Kuptz", are now asking, "Ms. Kuptz, you coming to my graduation?". The girl that just stared at me for about three weeks, shares how here morning is going with me every day. I BROKE THE ICE!!! I think I won them over....but more importantly they won my heart!

What I've learned:

Don't give up.

Persevere.

God HAS a plan.

Don't doubt it.

Embrace it.

IT'S GOOD!!!

Open your heart.

Jump out of your comfort zone.

Trust in Him.

Just...break the ice.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called According to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

I love teaching. I love my students. It's hard. It's so stinkin' worth it!!!

Wait… What? Burrrr!

December is just about here and I can’t even believe it! My last fall as an undergrad has flown by.

It seems like I was lugging mismatched furniture up the stairs of our “bright and shiny new apartment” in 90 degree weather yesterday. Since then we’ve learned that bright, shiny and new should really be old, drafty and ghetto. But it’s home now just the same. That was 4 months ago. 4 months, that’s all…but that’s also a lot. SO much has happened since early August, yet so little. It’s as if I’ve gone from a carefree jubilant college kiddo to a pseudo adult in a 4 month blink of an eye. My bedtime is now 10pm, I have a big girl car, planning a wedding, planning a future, searching for a career, professionally networking, and so much more. It’s a go-go-go, think -ahead, do this, do that, check, check, check kind of life that I’ve been living.

Is that what I want? Do I really enjoy realizing that it’s December and a new year is approaching and like I’ve done….well I’m not sure?

Not now.

Yes. I am doing something I love and that I am passionate about.
Yes. I am succeeding in school.
Yes. I am going to be graduating.
Yes. I am job searching.
Yes. I am planning for the future.

Yes. I am ….more than the things I do. I am more than: a job, a student, a professional, a teacher, an employee…

I am a child of God.
I am a sister in Christ.
I am beloved by the creator of heaven and earth.
I am chosen to do work that God has created in advance for me.
I am loved.

The go-go-go, think -ahead, do this, do that, check, check, check kind of life that I’ve been living doesn’t always work for me. Sometimes it just happens. It’s my natural inclination to turn on auto-pilot and soar. But when I auto-pilot my way through life, I go from living to existing. I can’t just exist. Jesus died on the cross to give us LIFE! So therefore I am called to LIVE. Yes, living sometimes does include school, work, planning and the like. But first and forever foremost it includes finding your identity, your strength, your sustenance, your faith, your hope, and your life in Christ. –That’s sometimes hard. Not because He made it hard for us; but because we make it hard for us. I made it hard for me.

This fall has been hard. It’s been just…YUCK! Yeah, there were some highs thrown in with the lows, but I’ve just been low. I’ve played a huge role in that. I have failed to recognize who I am.

Praise be to God that He is faithful and puts wonderful friends and family in my life to come into these times. Praise Him for continuing to be such a constant, faithful, loving father. Praise the Lord for being the One to put our hope into. I am hoping for a season of closeness to our father, a season of rediscovering who I am in the Lord, of really living, of finding my joy in Him, and of shedding the busy-busy-busy for connecting and growing. I don’t want June to be here and be like “Wait... What? Sizzle!”

Let’s live together, to bring honor and glory to Him.

"that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith."
Romans 1:12