Listening to God

So God speaks to us.  We're supposed to listen and obey.  That's it.  No questions asked (albeit NOT blind faith).  It's simple, right?  The Father tells us to do something, we do it; just like we should with our earthly fathers (honor your parents).  However, in practice, it's not that easy to be obedient.
Disclaimer:  I do not claim to be any kind of Biblical scholar, and this is not going to be a deep-seeded, profound message on the Word of God and its implications in our lives.  I simply want to share a personal story about listening to God, being obedient, and the joy it brings.
Quick background on me:  My parents are musicians.  They met when my dad's band was looking for a singer and my mom answered.  Thirty years later, they have three kids who have inherited the same passion for music.  My oldest brother has been a drummer longer than I've been alive (he got his first set on his 2nd birthday - a year before I was born).  He has been sitting in with mama and daddy in the band since he was 7? 8? 9? 10?  Somewhere in there (hey, I'm 3 years younger and those three years make a HUGE difference in memory capacity).  The point is, he's been playing for a while.  At the same time, since I was 5, I've been jumping up on stage and singing with my mama.  My first solo debut was when I was 5 at Halby's Delicatessen (it's been closed for a while -- you missed out!  Delicious food!!).  I sang "This Little Light of Mine" with Lightening Wells playing the guitar.  He is a local legend!  Fast forward about 10 years.  My other brother picked up the bass guitar when he was in high school and my daddy taught him how to play.  Many bands had come and gone between my parents and brothers before we all started playing together.  I don't know if you have anything that you do with your family, but it's a feeling that nothing else can invoke.  I highly recommend finding something!  Anyway, we have a band.  It's called Individually Twisted.  There have been several variations of IT based on who is playing with us.  My brothers were in a different band together and sometimes, they weren't able to play gigs with us so we had to find another drummer and bass player to fill in.  We've had keyboard players and other singers.  The core is, and has always been, mama and daddy.  No matter who was playing with us, as long as mama and daddy were there, I knew I was where I was supposed to be.  But when the boys are playing, there's a connection that is unparalleled.  There's this one song, "Like the Way I Do" by Melissa Etheridge that we play, and there's this one part at the end where it's just instruments and everyone is jamming.  Mama and I are dancing around, me banging the tambourine against my leg (and bruising it many times).  Everyone is in sync and it's powerful.  I close my eyes and breathe in the indescribable notion that this is my family and we are ONE.  Any negative feelings melt away and I'm at peace with everything.  I don't know how else to describe it.  It's just amazing!
What about listening to God, Jordan??  What happened to that?
I haven't forgotten my purpose for this blog.  The details of my background and family are essential for what I'm getting to next.
When I was 20, I start going to church.  I've always believed in God, and had been a visitor in a few churches, but until I started going to Ridgecrest, I didn't know what it meant to have a personal relationship with Christ.  Wow.  I think I'm just realizing that.  Sweet!  Anywho, I start going to church and learning about God and who He is.  I feel Him pulling me to him, until one afternoon (September 24, 2007), I ask Christ into my heart.  It was an amazing feeling.  I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  I was excited and filled with a joy that I had never felt before.  Thoughts in my head had begun to change.  Words from my mouth had begun to change.  Things I was interested in had begun to change.  One thing that has never changed, though, is my passion for music.  I started listening to Christian music.  About this time, Ridgecrest had added the Exalt service at 9:45 and I got plugged into that ministry by running sound.  That was back when Packy was playing his acoustic guitar (with Jason on bass, Denny on drums and Jenny H. singing before she had her baby).  I would sit back, turn the knobs, move faders, push buttons (I love buttons!), and sing along with every song.  I wanted so badly to ask Packy if I could sing with him, but I never had the confidence to do it.
Time passed.  Things changed.  The Deans took over Exalt worship when Packy and Stephanie left.  I want to say that they were a step up from Packy, but not because they were better.  I absolutely LOVE acoustic guitars!!  I mean that they brought the full band, more guitars and more voices.  It was a bigger sound job.  More knobs to turn, faders to move and buttons to push (I love buttons!).  With them, they also brought Molly.  Molly is a few years younger than I am with a voice that's as natural and powerful as my mom's (I'm sure I could have made a more relative comparison for my readers to understand, but to me, my mom's voice is at the top of all voices that I love -- so the comparison is a compliment to Molly!).
It would be so awesome to sing with the Exalt band!  But there is no way I could do that.  I can't sing like Molly! was a thought I often had.
More time passed.  I stopped doing sound because I was in my last year of school, student teaching, and was not going to be able to devote as much time to it as I wanted to.  I totally intended on going back when I graduated and was home permanently.  That brings us to this past January.
I went to Winter Conference in Gatlinburg, TN with some of the youth.  It was a great weekend.  I got to hear the popular Clayton King speak, as well as some others, and the worship leader was the famous Carl Cartee.  "Let the world see..."  :)  Yes, that Carl Cartee.  I got so much out of that weekend, through time spent with some of the girls, time spent in the mountains that God created, through the messages brought during the sessions, and definitely through the music.  I think if there's one way that God speaks to me, it's through music.  I've heard his still, small voice many times through the sound of His music.  Carl Cartee probably had a greater impact on me than he knows.  During one of the worship times, between songs, Carl talked about listening to God and being obedient.  That hit me like a punch in the gut.  Let me back up for a second.  For the past year, I had been hearing God tell me that I NEEDED to sing at church.  Almost every time the pastor would say something at the end of the message like "ask God what your next step is" or anything with the word OBEY, I would hear Him say "SING!" and think of a thousand reasons not to, which was always funny (weird funny, not haha funny) considering my passion for music and singing.  Okay, back to Mr. Cartee.  He said that, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I finally said, "Okay, God.  Take me there!"  And on the last day of the conference, maybe an hour before we left, God took me down to the stage where I talked to Carl Cartee about singing and Carl prayed for my boldness to obey the Lord.  It took a couple of weeks after getting back home to find that boldness to talk to Hubert.  He said, "Sure.  We'll give you an audition and see where to go from there" (my paraphrase).  I sang "Follow You" with Phyllis for the audition.  They said that it was awesome and that they looked forward to me singing with them in the future.  On March 25, I sang for the first time with the Exalt band.  It was just one song, "Shout to the Lord" and I thank God that he wasn't asking me to sing the part that I first thought he was, because that wouldn't have been pretty.  They just needed another voice to sing the chorus in the second half of the song.  "Shout to the Lord" was the last song of the service, after the offering and before dismissal.  As they played "Hungry" for the offering, I stood in the front row, with such bad trepidation that my jaw was rattling (not your normal I'm-freezing-cold chattering, but this-may-be-the-last-thing-I-ever-do terrified rattling).  Seriously.  My teeth hurt!  I walked up to Shay and told him that I was singing the next song and was so nervous that I didn't know what to do.  He prayed for me, and almost immediately, this feeling of calm rained down on me.  I was still a little nervous, but I was able to sing since my jaw had stopped rattling!  It was an amazing feeling for several different reasons.  First, the song was powerful!  The spirit of God was all in that song!!  Second, I was finally combining two of my passions in a good and productive way - singing to/about/for God.  And lastly, but most importantly, I realized that I was being obedient to God.  I had been fighting it for a while, but once I submitted to Him, it was amazing.  I stopped worrying and thinking and trying, and I just let Him work in me.  And that is truly a feeling that is unparalleled.  Nowhere, no one and nothing else on earth can do that.
It's funny to me that we fight God so much on what He wants us to do because of what we want to do, but when we submit wholly to Him, we see and feel His blessings and we are filled with a joy that comes from nowhere else but Him.
Fast forwarding a few months, this past June, I got to do something that I had been waiting for for so long to do.  I got to sing with Molly.  I was both extremely excited and extremely nervous to do so.  I was telling my daddy about it and he simply asked me "Why?"  Why was I nervous to sing with her.  My answer:  She's amazing!  Her voice  far surpasses anything I could ever dream to do with mine.  He said, "That's ridiculous.  Don't compare yourself to anyone else and let that stop you.  Be great at what you're great at, and she'll be great at what she's great at.  You're not the same person, so you won't have the same strengths" (again, my paraphrase).  Let me make this clear: Molly is not a god, I do not worship her, she is not an idol.  However, I admire her and absolutely LOVE her voice!  She intimidated me for a long time.  But after talking to my dad, I remembered that God made us all with different and special gifts.  Molly and I both have a gift of song, but they are completely different.  I got to the first practice with Molly on Wednesday night and I confessed that I was so excited to sing with her, and to my surprise, she was just as excited to sing with me!  That was just so cool!!
And all because I listened and obeyed God!  I took a little longer to obey, but God is persistent.  AND GOOD!!
Have faith.  Don't hesitate.  Simply obey.

Year in Review - teacher's edition

Soooo...  I realize that it's almost been a year since I've blogged.  Needless to say, there's a lot to cover.  I may not get to it all in this one.  But I think I'll start with the reason that most likely kept me from blogging: teaching!

This past year was my first year teaching.  I taught 8th grade Language Arts.  To be perfectly honest, I was terrified!!  I got into my classroom and was overwhelmed with all kinds of emotions.  I focused on trying to get it arranged, organized and decorated.  My dad gave me some small white bookshelves that he found in the warehouse at his work.  I spent a few hours painting them!!

My room was small and I had to figure out how to arrange 26 student desks, my teacher desk, the long bookshelf, the tall cabinet and my computer cart.  When the year started, I only had one white board to work with, and therefore could only do so much with the desks because I had to make sure I could project onto the board.  During the third or fourth week, I got another whiteboard installed!  So I then had (almost) double the work space.  I used one board for projecting and modeling the notes and used the other board for the daily and weekly updated (date, essential question, agenda, lunch menu, and any other announcements).

Original White board and black butcher paper for my concept map (if you don't know, don't worry)

The wall in between mine and the other LA teacher's rooms with the ridiculously placed window.  Seriously, why would you put a window in between two classrooms of middle schoolers??

My awesome door to the outside!!

My desk in it's first place.

The back wall.  Much thanks to my sister and mother in law for helping me get things on the walls!

 If you know me well, then you know that I can't keep things the same for too long.  Through the course of the year, my teacher desk was in all four corners of the room, the tall cabinet was in three of the corners, and I moved the concept map from the front wall to the back wall and back to the front wall.  Every time I moved my desk, I moved the student desks.  Sometimes, I rearranged the student desks for no reasons... Partly because of my need for change every so often, and partly because I loved to see/hear my students' reactions when they walk in and see the desks in a different shape.  

My desk in it's 3rd corner, by the outside door.  I think this was my favorite!

You can see my added whiteboard on the left side.  Through the door (in the middle-ish), is Ms. McCullum's room.  Yes, we had to walk through her class to get to mine!

I had this timer when I was student teaching and it worked great!  This past year, I learned that for the most part, 8th graders don't care how much of my time they waste.  (They did get better!)

 That's a lot about my classroom...  I spent a lot of the first few work days on my room.  I didn't think much about what I would be teaching until the 3rd day of school (the first two were half-days filled with get-to-know-you games and confusion... mostly confusion).  My collaborator, Ms. McCullum, was a 2nd year teacher and she had all her stuff from her previous year.  That was pretty much what I used to plan my lessons!  :)  Other teachers are many times the best resources!!!  If there's one thing I learned this year (and there are many things), it's that teachers are in meetings... A LOT!!!!  Some of these meetings are okay and you can actually get useful information from them.  Many of them, however, felt like colossal wastes of time.  I learned the most by observing and talking to other teachers.  I made great friends with one of the 6th grade teachers who taught 7th grade the year before and who knew many of my students.  I spent many of my planning periods in her class and got to know many of her students.  She came into my class many times during her planning too.  We became known to our assistant principal as "double trouble."  And really, except for the meetings when we were crazy bored... or work days when we were crazy bored, we really weren't that bad!  There was that one meeting... whew!  That was a doozy.  I actually feared a conversation with the principal after that one, but I think even he was bored out of his mind and was counting how many times the presenter said words that started with the letter S.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure he was.
In March, Amanda (aforementioned 6th grade teacher) and I convinced our principal that we needed to go to a Holocaust workshop in Charlotte.  We got a hotel room.  The search for the hotel room was extensive... It had to have an indoor pool!  (Outdoor pools are not as much fun in March!)  We left right after school, got to the hotel, went to dinner, then the grocery store for snacks, then to the pool (with the snacks!).  The workshop was the next day from 8-4:30 with an hour lunch.  It was incredible!  My UNCG History of the Holocaust professor was a speaker.  He, of course, gave us a detailed history of antisemitism and Hitler, and gave us some reasonable causes of the horrible period.  After lunch, we heard from a Holocaust survivor.  I was on the edge of my seat.  His story was incredible!  He wrote a book.  I totally bought the book!  And he signed it!  I have a piece of history in my office!!  We also got a TON of resources about how to teach the Holocaust, which I'm so excited about!!  We had a great time and learned a lot!
In May, I had the UN-pleasure of administering the EOGs for the first time ever.  UN-pleasure is an UNderstatement!  It was awful.  Boring.  Tiring.  Stressful.  Boring.  But successful.  There was growth in my students.  BUT even worse than the EOGs was remediation week, which I affectionately refer to as "hell week."  It lead to the second time I had to walk out of my class before crying (the first was when I was threatened by one of my students and I was so mad that I had to leave before I started throwing things).  I was so stressed out, I didn't know which way was up, the students didn't know where they were going and they didn't care about being remediated. 
In June came the most rewarding time of the year; the END!!  We got to celebrate the students who did well on the EOGs, and all year.  We had an 8th grade cook-out (in which my students discovered that I could play football--or at least pretend to. I did score a touchdown though...) 
(I'm not sure why this part is highlighted...?)

Getting ready for the hike...

Our celebratory poses!  

The student I asked to take pictures did a horrible job of capturing my awesome TD.  But, for me, I have the memory, and for you, well... I hope you have enough experience watching football on TV or enough imagination to pretend.  :)

We also had an 8th grade dance on June 1st.  I didn't realize that these kids take this dance so seriously.  There was one student who was on the list of no-gos, but fought to go.  In the end, we let him attend.  Between him and his girlfriend, I'm pretty sure their parents had spent $300!  And it showed when they got there!  This dance was like prom for middle schoolers...  Actually, the only difference that I know of is that my students had to get dropped off by their parents.  I heard about a bunch of after parties, which kinda scared me!  But everything turned out great!!  One of the highlights of the dance is when the students found out that the two science teachers were dating, and had been the entire year!  It was hilarious.  The other highlight was watching Mr. Carmichael, an extreme type-A, serious, rigid guy, break out the best robot dancing I've ever seen.  It was soooo smooth and the kids LOVED it!!

Mr. Pentoney and Ms. Snyder!  I knew the first day they met that they would get together!

Carmichael breaking it down for the students.  Hilarious!!

 The last day of school was emotional.  I was exhausted and worn down and sun burnt (thanks to the cook out when we stayed outside ALL DAY!), but when the end of the day came and we were out in the bus lot, I watched my kids leave.  My babies.  The pains in my butt.  My lovelies.  I have to be honest, I teared up.  Tears almost fell down my cheek.  It was when I realized that I just finished teaching 8th graders who would be moving on to the 9th grade... at the high school... not down the hall and around the corner.  It was the end of my first year and all the relationships I had worked for (some I worked ALL year at), were leaving and I'd probably never see them again.  Yes, some will come back to see me next year, but, as I try not to do anything in Roxboro except work, the likelihood that I'll see any of them outside of school is very slim!
I had a great year.  I think I learned more than my students did.  I had an incredible team I worked with in the 8th grade.  I made some new friends.  I kinda figured out how to teach.  I was also asked to come back.  I liked that part!  :) I'm really excited about next year!!  Wow... this turned out to be a long blog.  I guess I'll have to write more blogs!  It's 3 in the morning and I've been working on this one since 11pm.  I think I'm finally getting sleepy.  Goodnight blogging world!