I have officially stayed in my new house for an entire week! Yikes. It is crazy to think what God has done in my life to get me here. I was thinking the other day about middle school and high school and college. I was thinking about since 4th-grade I had my mind set on being a teacher. I wanted to be just like Mrs. B (my 4th-grade teacher) and all those teachers who taught me and showed me how to live with Christ in my heart. In high school, I still planned on going to MLC to become a teacher. I was going to go to school and be just like my cousin and aunt and grandma and the teachers who taught me, a teacher that helped a child grow in Christ and in earthly knowledge.
However, in high school, I was opened up to so many other opportunities and job options. Going to a WELS school it was pushed to go into prep school and MLC. They never forced it on you but they did push it a lot. In high school, I started to have second thoughts. I started to question if teaching was still for me.
I volunteered as a Sunday school teacher since middle school, I volunteered as a vacation bible school teacher throughout high school. I grew a lot with those experiences but each time I questioned, is teaching really for me?
Everyone said I would be a great teacher. They all said that I should follow into the teaching life. That I should teach.
I never did tell anyone that I didn’t know if I wanted to be a teacher till my senior year of high school. Of course before that even when someone asked me what I wanted to go to school for or what I wanted to do when I grew up I automatically said that I wanted to be a teacher. I didn’t even think about it at that point. It became a reflex to say I was going to school to become a teacher.
I went to school to become a teacher. I was at that school for 2 months and I knew that teaching, and that specific school was not what God had in mind for me. When I started to think about what being a teacher for those kids really mind I started to panic. I would panic where I had to actually stop doing whatever I was doing and calm myself down. Whether that was with a movie or tv show to get my mind off of it or going for a walk. Honestly, that depended on the weather and time of day 🙂
When you become a teacher in the WELS synod you are responsible for that child’s soul, well being and mind. All three of those points are super important and critical to a child and an adult as they grow and learn. I covered why I did not want to be a WELS synod teacher for children but I didn’t say why I didn’t want to teach. Because at this point I had a temper and I would get excited and not be able to think clearly or act correctly on the situation at hand. Since an incident, I have calmed down. I have prayed constantly for patience and the ability to calm down. It has worked. I have been learning to keep myself calm. Sometimes, (my family can attest to this) I don’t handle some situations very well still. I am trying, I am learning but I tend to jump or shut down and become a little snippy. It is a working progress but I have learned that to get through life it is better to breathe and walk away with no words said at all (yes this causes anger from the other person) rather than to open my mouth and regret everything that comes out. You may be asking, why don’t you breathe and talk through it? The answer to your question is, if it gets to this point, I can not handle the other person in the right way. I may end up hurting them or myself with what comes out of my mouth. For instance, say I get into a disagreement if it gets heating enough where I am on the verge of screaming at the person is it not better for me to breath, turn around and walk away rather than facing them and trying to win the argument possibly making the situation more heated and excited?
I did not continue on schooling to become a teacher because I do not want to be the teacher that causes fright in her students. I do not want to be the teacher that yells all the time. I do not want to be the teacher that gets into arguments with their students about who knows what on a regular basis or when they just want to pick a fight.
Commenting to me about this will not help anything. This is something that I am working through with God. He is helping me stay calm and I am leaning on him when I feel agitated.
I made the official decision around Thanksgiving or Christmas (I don’t remember exactly because there was a lot going on that year around that time). I told my parents and I told my friends that I was not coming back to MLC the next year and I was not going to be a teacher. They all supported me in my decision. Of course, the friends at MLC tried to talk me out of it at first but we were friends, saying goodbye is never easy. We soaked up the rest of the year as much as we could. Spent time and energy together and had a blast!
During the rest of the year, I had to decide what I really wanted to do with my life and where I wanted to go. I knew I did not want to take a year off because getting back into the rhythm of school personally for me would not be easy.
I decided to make a binder. In this binder, I had multiple schools that interested me. Under each school tab were degrees the schools offered that interested me. I narrowed it all down by which school I was the least interested in. Then I did the same with each degree. Eventually, I knew which degree I was going to go for, entrepreneurship. I then decided on the school with the one year program. I figured that was the best way to go because if I changed my mind again I wouldn’t drop out of another degree.
Which leads us to where we stand now…although I am currently sitting.
I decided I wanted to open a bed and breakfast with the 10-year plan of expanding the business by adding a fruit farm. What I mean by that is Simple Blessings LLC will have a bed and breakfast and they will have a fruit farm. It would be like two branches off of one tree. That is the ultimate goal, but who knows what God really has in store for me in the future.
Here as I sit on my couch in the living room of my house and ponder the road that God has led me down.
Thank you to all of you for giving me the suppose and love I really needed these past few years. Thank you for your loving guidance and knowing when I just need to walk away to breathe.
Forever grateful to you all.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~Jerimiah 29:11