I'm sad AND excited

BSF wrapped up for the year yesterday. 

People ask me if I'm glad and relieved that it's done.  I'm not.  I'm sad.  I will miss my kiddos and I will miss my dear friends.

I love getting to meet Monday mornings with dear sisters in Christ.  We pray each week that we can serve the women and children with excellence.  We pray for the Spirit to guide phone discussions and classroom challenges.  We pray for discernment and clarity to teach children at their level of understanding.  Then we pray for God to prepare hearts so that those seeds can land and take root. 

We pray for smiles and hugs for those who need them, for names to come to mind quickly, for there to be no distraction to the discussing the lesson and hearing the lecture.  We pray for each other, for the personal things in our lives that affect our roles at BSF--we carry each other's burdens, and we see God knit our hearts together.

And week after week we thank God for how He answers and how He is so present.  He indeed did great things this past year.  I am grateful for my year and I'm sad it has come to a close because I get to be a part of something amazing that God is doing in our little corner of Cypress, Texas. 

I get to learn dependence on the Holy Spirit to do anything of value.  I get practical training on so many things that allow me to be an effective teacher.  I get to sit around a room and discuss deep theological truths and find a way to distill and condense and NOT trivialize.  This is hard work and yet it satisfies me and feeds me.  What a gift!

What I think I'm most grateful for is that I've learned to pray.   To know that I'm talking to God.  To pray big and expectant.  To wait and look for His response.  I've learned to pray meaningful prayers for the children in my class and then used those same words to pray for my own kids.

Then the gift, the bonus, I get to then take all of that and bless my family and church with what I have learned.  I am a better wife and mother and friend and volunteer because of it.  And maybe you're reading this and don't think so, and that's okay, but I know my heart and I can tell you that without this I'd be selfish and prideful and neglectful and completely obsessed with all the wrong things. 

So, I am sad that BSF has wrapped up for the school year, but I am grateful that I still get to study and pray on my own.  I'm grateful that I get to teach children at my church--on Sunday and at VBS.  Of course, I'm grateful that I get to spend more time loving and serving my family and neighbors.  I'm also grateful, that God willing (as I should say always when stating my plans), is that next year we get to study the book of Romans. 

I am excited!