Inside the Mind of an Educator

The past year I learned to let go.   I let go of the things that numbed me and focused on things of goodness. I removed sugar, grain, and alcohol from my life. I resolved to enjoy foods and fuel myself with goodness.   I let go of reading scripture as a checklist. I read the Bible in chronological order in nine months. I fell deeper in love with Jesus, learned more about the fear of God as worship, and let go of the routines I had clung to for a false sense of safety. I realized I had stopped putting effort into my relationship with God, merely going through the motions of what I thought it meant to follow Jesus.   I let go of comparison and false connection by deleting social media. This single decision brought incredible freedom, giving me more time for creative thinking and meaningful interactions with those I love.   I let go of chasing paychecks and cut my work commitments down from four to just two and then to one role. I embraced the feel...

The last week of every month we have baptisms at ACF Church, and it is my favorite Sunday. I love celebrating with God's children, in this outward expression of faith. When an ACF Kids kiddo makes the decision to be baptized, I am especially excited to witness and rejoice with them and their family.  Today we had multiple children choose baptism including Sadie. Sadie is one of our ACF Kid Captains and serves on Sunday mornings. She is my special helper and assists in setting up rooms, plays games with our preschoolers, and greets everyone with her beautiful smile. She showed up ready to be baptized today, which is a decision she did not take lightly. She had asked me about baptism a month ago, and I asked her to pray over this important step in her faith every night until it was time for our next baptism. She was bubbling, and...well I will let her tell you.  I stood in the foyer after baptisms and was overcome with emotion as I witnessed a daddy-daughter moment. A ...

I have been called to serve alongside an amazing group of people in ACF Kids. We have an empowered team who do life together, pray over each other, love on one another, all while equipping small and mighty disciples to amplify the grace of Jesus to the churched, unchurched, and de-churched. Every day I see God moving in the classrooms through these beautiful souls. However, there are days when you see God moving in unexplainable ways. The days when your heart feels emotions that are too great for actual words to describe. I suppose this is what King David felt as he danced and shouted praise in the Psalms. Today was one of  those  days. One of those days...when an Elementary Team Captain, Michael Everett, decided to show his love for Jesus Christ through an outward expression of faith. He was BAPTIZED! The whole team rallied and showed flexibility and grace as they covered rooms so he and his wife could go upstairs for the baptism. He shared that he has been praying over this ...

Aristotle called courage the first virtue because it makes all of the other virtues possible. Courage is a characteristic of great leaders, and followers tend to lean into those who are bold and confident in decisions. Courageous leaders are willing to take risks and embrace failure as lessons for future attempts. Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the willingness to move forward anyway. If I am honest, I do not describe myself as courageous. I am risk-averse to a fault at times. Although others have stated I am brave for being willing to take risks and journey into the unknown, there is a fear hidden beneath the surface. Although some of the decisions I have made seem like acts of courage, often they are terrifying leaps of faith deemed necessary for survival or as an act of pure obedience to God.   Perhaps, I am more courageous than I give myself credit for, but honestly, I believe it is only because of my relationship with Christ that I can embrace risks. I battle wi...

 One of my favorite essays is Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I used to have students in my high school English classes explicate it the first few weeks of the course. The purpose was to get them to recognize their own ability to think, express themselves and a need to be who they were created to be in class. I wanted each of my students to recognize the power within and freely bring their unique perspectives into the discussion. In fact, my only rule of the classroom was to "Be Yourself."  However, as I sat in service at ACF Church, self-reliance took on a new meaning. We discussed Exodus; specifically, the chapters focused around Pharaoh's hardened heart, and it became clear how self-reliant I have become. I used to think this was such an essential characteristic for a military wife, mother, and woman. In fact, I was told once by a powerful woman in my life, "Never depend on anyone or anything. You must be willing to fight for yourself and never lean on anyon...

You might wonder and ask me why What was the reason to seek this position In part, an act of obedience to apply The skills He has gifted in humble submission But I hit submit because my heart is breaking I am standing on the other side of good Where the policy and politics are faking Where hope, faith, and God once stood I see how much ground we are losing each day The passion and love for the human has faded The joy that once colored learning now bleak and gray And the educators of the world growing more jaded The politicians crying out for more accountability Relying on more funding or testing to be a magical savior The education system no longer running on sensibility And the schools are overloaded with bad behavior Identity should not come from a pronoun preference Or from labels the world defines as equitable Gender selection should not be the school's point of reference Keeping kids from reaching the potential for which they are capable I became an educator to love kids wher...