I guess God wants me to be a teacher

I attended an unusual high school. It was a prep school for entering the ministry, so there were a lot of missionary kids from around the world, as well as Pastors' kids from around the country. I was a less common student, not having come from a start-up congregation in the middle of Zimbabwe. But like the other students, I did live on campus in the dorms.

We'd attend chapel twice per day, religion class three times per week, and mandatory choir and piano lessons. You never heard words like "evolution" or "democrat" in class. This was an environment where taking "one nation under God" out of the Pledge and "In God We Trust" off our money were considered serious grievances.

Being female, my option was to train for the teaching ministry (boys could be teachers or pastors). The natural path of the female prep student was to attend Martin Luther College and from there receive a divine call to teach in a Lutheran school. That's what all the cool kids were doing.

I'm not very cool.

Having had zero experience with anyone younger than myself, teaching little kids was definitely out. Kids scared me. So I expected to teach English to teenagers. I really didn't consider other alternatives. (I dreamed of being a fiction novelist the way other kids dreamed of being rock stars, so I never thought of that as a viable option.)

Looking back on the prep school environment, which I did love and do not regret, it was a bit culty. While I was one of the lucky kids who got to go home on weekends, weekdays were a kind of constant brainwash. Your school is church, your cafeteria is church, your bedroom is church. We were normal kids, definitely not saints, but we had zero doubts about God and faith and (for many) the paths we were on toward the ministry.

I did doubt whether I had the capability to teach. I knew I could do it, but could I be great at it? Would I enjoy it? The more I thought, the more I felt uncomfortable with the image of me in front of a classroom of teenagers. With my personality, I would have no control over these students. They would walk all over me and learn next to nothing.

I determined there were two reasons I could never teach: 1) I didn't have the strength to be tough with students. 2) I didn't have the patience to teach. I'd just hand over the answer and hope they understood it.

I didn't attend the Lutheran college and become a teacher. I didn't marry a pastor and play the church organ. I don't look lovely in an ankle-length dress. In fact, I barely go to church these days because it would interrupt nap time, and because chasing my lightning-fast boy down a church aisle while every muscle in my body tightens with stress is not, in my opinion, to God's glory.

Still, God is having the last laugh. I always knew that parents have to teach their kids things -- most notably how to use the potty -- but the extent of teaching didn't sink in until recently. I am a mother = I am a teacher. 

As I switch from moving his hand to his mouth as he forks up his scrambled eggs, to stopping him from trapping himself behind the couch, to mouthing words in front of his face in the hopes that he'll start to speak, I know it isn't just a few things along the way. Parents need to teach them EVERYTHING, at least during these first years. Some things come naturally or easily or even without prompting, but most skills are taught.

I thought back to my reasons I could never teach, realizing that subconsciously I already was overcoming what had held me back. I'm finding strength I didn't know I had, to be tough when necessary. I'm finding the patience I never had, because the reward is worth the pace and the work.

What changed? As with all things, the difference is love.

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P.S. New blog design! Hooray! Exclamation point!

faith

Angela has been blogging for two months and already she's posing, literally, the most difficult question that exists. Asking for gardening or baking tips just isn't her style, not when the world at large still hasn't come up with a satisfactory explanation for the meaning of life.

How do you have faith? (How is it possible to feel certain about whatever it is you believe?) And for those who don't buy into "God," how do you find satisfaction in a life void of faith?

Let me start with the conclusion and work backward: You don't create faith by yourself. We humans? We're just not that talented. We were created to NOT be that talented. We were created to STRUGGLE with faith.

If you've ever taken a philosophy class (and had one of those great professors that pushed and pushed and pushed until your breath was huffing and the only answer left to give is "I guess I don't exist!"), then you probably know what I mean when I say that the human mind has limits. And language has HUGE limits. There are emotions that have no words. Explanations that have no words. Occurrences all around us that go unknown. It isn't too difficult to imagine that in the great fabric of this life, we are only able to see and know a few of the threads.

Now God, he's the pinnacle of the unknown. First our limited minds and then our limited language make it so that we can't get a real grasp on what he is, what he does, or for heaven's sake WHY. (Note: I absolutely hate that we call him "HE" when gender has no place at all in the concept of GOD.)

I was raised WELS Lutheran. For those who don't know, they're the strict ones. They look at the Bible and feel that every single word is the "God-breathed" truth and no rule ever, ever bends. This is the LITERAL branch of the Lutheran religion.

(Another sidenote: Who decided which "books" of the Bible were God-breathed and which weren't? A room full of men hundreds of years ago, according to The Da Vinci Code. I love books/movies that make me question my faith, and I think God does too!)

Anyway, for Lutherans it's all about the TRINITY. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. So God the Father is up there looking all mighty (like Keifer Sutherland or maybe Bruce Willis). He created the world. Now he hangs out there watching everything that goes on here and answering all our prayers with "Yes," "No," or "Later." (What must THAT inbox look like?)

Then there's God the Son, our pal Jesus (Christian Bale or maybe Leonardo DiCaprio). He got to hang out with us confused humans for a while, then he went and DEFEATED DEATH, which (kind of like a Disney movie) was the magic hocus pocus needed to save us from damnation, Hell, our sins, ourselves. Awesome. No more sacrificing animals to get ourselves to Heaven.

But then there's the holy ghost. Kind of the odd guy out (played by Zack Galifianakis), what does the holy ghost do? Play solitaire?

I was told that he is all about FAITH. He creates it, he brings it, he makes it possible for us dumb humans to believe something so outrageous, even when it goes against our so-called good sense.

In order to receive this gift, you have to ASK and you have to HEAR.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard this or thought it myself: I don't have any reason to go to church. I already know everything the pastor says.

I know this makes it sound all cult-y and brainwash-y, but the more you hear it, the easier it is to keep your faith whole. I think it's because it makes you think more about God in your day-to-day life. The more you hear his name and the words in the Bible, the more they pop into your head at random moments... and it's helpful. It's peaceful.

But you have to ask for faith. You have to want it, and work on it, because it DEFINITELY will go against your common sense.

The bigger question from Angela's post wasn't so much how do you believe in God, though. It was how do you believe that you're believing in the right faith.

No one knows absolutely if their faith is right. If they say they absolutely know, then they're full of sh*t. I'm biased toward WELS Lutheranism because it does make sense to me -- you can't only believe some of the words in the Bible, you have to take them ALL literally. (Another sidenote: Lutherans aren't so stupid as to take parables as true stories, etc.)

But just like there's always a tiny voice in your head that says, "What if God is a fairytale?" that voice might say, "Maybe the Muslims have it right!"

And that is good. GOOD. Because if you're allowed to question your faith? You aren't in a cult. You're in a conversation with God. And he LOVES that.