...Hello out there?

This year is kicking my caboose. Working as a first year teacher is taking up every spare minute I have; it's honestly tough to do ANYTHING non-teaching-related-- even sleep-- without feeling guilty. No matter what I'm doing, in the back of my head, I'm panicking about my grading pile, trying to invent new lesson plans, thinking about the books I'm teaching which I haven't yet read, criticizing myself for not writing up a handout to help my sophomores better comprehend the Shakespeare they're reading, and so on, and so on, and guilt guilt guilt.

This is why I have not been blogging. Right now, in fact, the thoughts going through my head are, "You need to finish writing up the "Tale of Two Cities" questions. You need to be checking your students' blogs. You need to figure out how you're going to better assist your sophomores." And so on, and so on, and guilt guilt guilt.

However-- as some of you may have just mentally commented when reading the above paragraph-- living so single-mindedly is not healthy. Letting my job take over my entire life is not healthy.

And it's taking a toll, honestly. I'm losing myself. I'm exhausted. I tie so much self-worth to my job that, for instance, when a student in my AP Literature class tells me she doesn't feel like the class is adequately preparing her, as she did this morning-- I feel absolutely crushed.

I am more than an AP class. I am more than just a teacher. And-- what I'm able to feebly assert in the midst of these exhausting, defeating, tangled cobwebs-- I am a GOOD teacher. I know I am. I've seen it. My kids are learning, and they're having fun. I am a GOOD teacher.

But that's not all I am.

What I am, is part divine, and part cursed.

The last several weeks I have been confronted with the magnitude of what it means to consider yourself a Christian. We must acknowledge that we are both made in the image of God-- that we are of heavenly origin, that we have every instinct to recognize what is good, and true, and right-- yet also, that we are fallen. We are cursed. We are sickened and impaired by the perversion of our sinful humanity.

Made in the image of God... and fallen. What a beast, right?

I recognize that I can choose to indulge in one or the other. I can give into this twisted part of me, and indulge in lies, in feelings of insufficiency-- I can tell myself that being a teacher defines me and so when I fail as a teacher, I FAIL. I can tell myself that the fears I have about marriage, about faithfulness, about myself, are all TRUE and that Hope is nothing more than a cruel deceiver. I can give in to self-loathing. I can indulge in sin, and tell myself it doesn't matter. I can work myself to death and distract myself from the things that are truly important. I can howl out at the darkness and let it overwhelm me.

Or, I can indulge in the OTHER half. I can hope, and believe in hope. I can claim a whimsical moment and laugh, and share it with a loving Lord. I can seek goodness, and purity, and the understanding that I am beloved and delighted in. I can choose forgiveness. I can choose wholeness. I can choose to trust, to drive a stake in the ground called TRUST and to cling to it while the storm approaches. I can look defiantly at the rolling dark clouds, and I can roar back at the thunder. I can cry out at the darkness and declare that it has no power over me. I am a child of God. I am made in His image. I am blessed. I am protected.

They fight over me, every day. This dual nature wages a tug of war over my soul, over my psyche, over my heart.

And it is just hard, sometimes, to cling to the right half. You know? Some days, it is just hard.