God's gifts from the first week of teaching

The sermon at church yesterday was one of those where you leave feeling like, "Oh, sorry, everyone else, that was for me!"

Before our sermons, our pastor has been reading a chapter every week from the letters to the Corinthians.  We just happened to get to chapter 12 in 2 Corinthians yesterday, where Paul explains to the Corinthians...

Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.  And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

  

I'm still working on that part about boasting in my infirmities and taking pleasure in them, but I am still trying to give thanks for this back pain from a bulging disc that He has given me.

And then in the sermon, our pastor taught from Joshua 12, as he works his way through the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.  From this seemingly redundant chapter on the victories God gave to Israel, our pastor shared so poignantly.  He reiterated how we need to see the unfolding story of the kingdom of God throughout the Bible.  And here in Joshua, we see God granting victory to the Israelites as a type, pointing forward to the victory He gives us over all our enemies in the death of Jesus on the cross.  As a secondary point, our pastor challenged us to see how Joshua pointed out each and every victory over each and every king and region throughout the Promised Land.  We are to be reminded to praise God for each gift.

Each gift that is from Him, His power, His grace.    

Oh, how sweet that was to me.  That's what He's been teaching me, all these months... here on my blog I keep my seemingly insignificant list of the ways He works for me.  And that's what He wants us to see in Joshua 12.

 ^...And these are the kings of the country which Joshua and the children of Israel conquered on this side of the Jordan, on the west, from Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon as far as Mount Halak and the ascent to Seir, which Joshua gave to the tribes of Israel as a possession according to their divisions, in the mountain country, in the lowlands, in the Jordan plain, in the slopes, in the wilderness, and in the South—the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites...

It doesn't look like much or sound like much to our modern, foreign ears.  But each one of these battles was won by God.  And God wanted His people to remember them and rehearse them for generations -- indeed, forever.  We see these same victories even repeated again in praise to God in the Psalms.


So here I am with my list, because God works for me (and not just for me, but all His children!)...
  
- This first week of teaching, with so many hills and valleys, but oh, so much grace
- The students testing me
- Finding methods that worked to show the kids firm love
- The students making progress, even in just a few days, to work with my system, and strive to be more attentive
- A special ed teacher getting mad at me
... and her apologizing to me the next day
... and me discovering that her anger was simply passion for a student's success
- My mother-in-law driving me to one of my teacher trainings, so that I didn't have to
- Scott helping with dishes and laundry and household chores
- Scott staying home with sick Abel last Monday (my first solo day)
- Abel falling apart crying when I went to pick him up from the babysitter's house on Wednesday (holding in all his sadness from the day away from me)
- Finding Abel playing so happily the next day at the babysitter's that he didn't even want to leave
- Abel thanking God for getting to go to the babysitter's house and play with her little boy
- Manageable back pain, even while teaching for the whole week!