Power in Weakness

When it was my turn to share in the small group, I simply said, "I just want to serve God in a way that brings me joy and helps other people." They all nodded understandingly, and soon it was the next person's turn to speak.     That was my heart cry in 2016 in an early morning meeting with a handful of church leaders. I was a full time sixth grade teacher at that moment, and I was quite aware that it would most likely be a brief chapter in my life story. Middle school education is a noble occupation (seriously, if that's you I salute you), one that I even enjoyed at times, but I just knew it wasn't for me. Thus the comment.     I remember it vividly because it so captured the longing of that season. Four years later, now working at a church part time, it's still something I'm yearning for, something that feels closer but still just out of my reach. What was I made to do? I keep asking. It's like a windy mountain road where the going is slow and you...

Ah, Christmas time. That time of the year when parents lie to their children about Santa Clause and celebrities expressively sing traditional carols with no apparent acknowledgment of their deeply theological and exclusively Christocentric meaning. What could be better?    Well, maybe Baby Jesus is better. Another one of the hallmarks of this season is the celebration of the "Christmas story," of Jesus Christ being born to Mary. The truth of God becoming a human forever is, to be sure, a profound and essential part of the central gospel message. The fact that the Christmas season gives room to shine a light on this is no small thing. I'm grateful, and I think as Christians we should "make the most of every opportunity" (Colossians 4:5) to talk about what God has done.     That said, I've been thinking about the proliferation of "Baby Jesus Culture" during our Christmas weeks. Again, it is so much better than, say, Vampire and Witch Culture during...

In that moment, I've never wished more that I had paid attention in high school Spanish. Because no one in the whole room spoke English. And I was supposed to teach them.     High school Spanish...was kind of a joke to me. To the constant annoyance of my teachers, I persisted in saying every Spanish word as dry, white, and gringo-y as possible and barely put in enough effort to pass. What I did expend effort on, however, was learning Spanish cuss words and inappropriate phrases, which I even slipped into class presentations from time to time. So even though I was shocked when my teacher finally kicked me and my friend Derek out of her class halfway through my senior year, probably no one else was. We had it coming.     Fast forward x number of years, all the way to last Friday. I took a sub job for a "Spanish" class. No big deal--I've subbed for dozens of high school Spanish classes. They're full of kids that are mostly like I was (perhaps slightly more...

One of the benefits of being in a different classroom almost every weekday is being exposed to different teaching strategies, classroom atmospheres...and classic books that I don't own!    In an English classroom 4 weeks ago I pressed "play" on Audible.com's And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie in a class full of freshmen in high school. It was soon clear that, while none of the students appeared especially interested, one substitute teacher was raptured into the intriguing storyline so much that he had to finish the book himself over the course of the next 3 days. I don't usually read crime novels, but this book (boldly endorsed as "the world's most beloved mystery novel" on the back cover) was so compelling that I devoured it as fast as possible, bringing it to an eerie conclusion throughout Halloween week.     Fast forward 2 weeks later and once again I found myself flipping through another English teacher's copy of Brave New World...

I understand my blog has been dormant for more than a short while, and I know this is an odd and even uncharacteristic topic for me to broach at all, much less as the subject of my re-inauguration post. But blogging again has been on my mind for awhile, as has this topic, so without overthinking why I would begin again with such a weird and often controversial topic, why not spout off some simplistic and haphazard answers to a deep and complex issue?      But first, since this blog is about 10% autobiography, and knowing where someone is coming from is always helpful when discussing important matters: where have I been for the last two years?      Last time I posted I was recently married and working full time as a 6th grade English teacher at St. Paul's School. My 2.5 years at St. Paul's were so many things: rich, rewarding, challenging, educational...and extremely exhausting. I put in my resignation in Spring of 2018 because I believed God was calling m...

I'm relaunching my blog--hooray! Very unlike the reason I relaunched my blog 3 years ago (I suddenly had tons of free time), I hardly have leisure time enough to breathe or eat, much less start a new project, BUT I also have a dire need to write the things God is teaching me, chronicle this ongoing journey of believing for healing in the midst of often devastating illness, and in the process, encourage myself in the truth. You can come along too if you want. Since the last time I posted: I started dating a hot mama named Jessica Maxson and forgot about my blog and pretty much everything else in life (except for the very understandable primal urge for Mexican food). I somehow convinced this same girl to marry me, and we were happily wed in June of this year. I moved back to Visalia, first to substitute teach, then to teach full time at St. Paul's School. I started as a science teacher, and then it suddenly dawned on everyone involved that I had no background in science o...

Sometimes somebody says something that just makes sense of your life. One word - or one statement - causes all of the disjointed jigsaw pieces to miraculously come together, hover in the air for one breathtaking moment of suspense, and then form a beautifully uniform picture before your very eyes. You don't know what I mean? Okay, let me explain. I'm still studying the book of Romans. Last time I wrote a blog, I was on chapter 1. Well, I haven't gotten very far in the past few weeks. I'm on chapter 5 now. Last night and this morning I listened to a sermon by Billy Humphrey on Romans 5:3-5, which reads: "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." If you think a whole sermon on such a short passage is a st...