Lessons from Jackson

As some of you may know I have a five month old, furry companion named Jackson. When he was born in November I simply could not resist him. With his tiny body and adorable little face I was completely in love from the start. As he grew, I was like a proud mama wanting to take him everywhere and show him to everyone. I took countless pictures of him and bragged on the adorable things that he did. In my opinion Jackson is one of the cutest dogs in the world and his personality matches his looks to a T. As precious as he can be we often have some obedience issues. Since I live on the school’s campus I do not want him playing around the kids while they are at school so I have to leave him inside. This creates all kinds of problems such as potty training, chewing on things that are not chew toys, and general curiosity. Depending on the week Jackson will have serious lack of bladder control as well as a need to chew ever cord in sight. These are the weeks when I contemplate getting rid of him all together; I think about how great my life was when my apartment did not smell like a dirty little dog, or when I did not have to cover my furniture with sheets just to keep him from getting everything dirty. One morning I think that he had in his head that he was going to systematically destroy my apartment so he threw up on my rug, took CD’s off one of my shelves, chewed a lamp cord, ripped up a picture that was in a frame, and managed to do all of it while I was in the shower! Needless to say, that was not a good day in our relationship. Yet, there is something about that little fluff of terror that draws me back every time.

Now do not get me wrong, Jackson does have some great qualities that come out more and more as he gets older. He loves people. Whenever there are people around Jackson wants to be there. He is always ready to play with whomever or whatever will have him. He seems to sense when people want to play and he is ready for the challenge. Secondly, it seems like he is always smiling, I know that is weird but I am convinced that he can smile. I can see the pure joy on his little face especially when he is doing his favorite activity, running through puddles, and when he wakes up in the morning and sees me. He is the most precious thing when I get up in the morning to get ready for school. He wakes up and starts wagging his tail and smothers me in kisses. I have no other choice other than to sit there and love on him for a little bit. Thirdly, he loves me more than anything. When he was only a few weeks old he could not even sleep unless he could see me and now I have to leave my door open so he can make sure I am okay in the middle of the night. He is incredibly protective and dedicated to my safety.

There is nothing that Jackson can offer me. He never offers to buy his own food. He does not clean up after himself. He cannot seem to wipe his paws before he comes in the house. He never helps me clean. And he definitely does not bathe himself. Jackson has nothing to give yet I still love him and take time to care for his every need. So you might think that this post has something to do with how God does that for us. How we have nothing to give him yet he takes care of our every need. Although I have been learning that lesson as well that is not the stunning thing that I have learned from my furry friend. I have learned something about faith and listening.  

Jackson likes to wander off. He loves to find adventure such as running through the ditch or barking at the horse or visiting the school. When his is in the middle of some such adventure with his partner in crime Andy’s dog XC, he completely shuts his ear off. He either does not hear or does not pay attention to me when I call him to come inside. Most of the time when this happens I get frustrated and try to find him and when I do he knows he is in trouble. The little thing has an insatiable desire to do things his own way and if he does not want to come to me he won’t. I absolutely hate it when I call his name and he comes close enough for me to see him only for him to turn and run the opposite way. One day last week we were on a walk on campus and he had wandered up the hill to find some critter in the woods when I began to call his name to go back home. When he did not come for a while I just began to walk back. Every once and a while I would turn around and call him but he was nowhere in sight. As I walked back God began to reveal to me that I was so much like Jackson. I have a tendency to do things my own way. I always want to do what I have in mind before I do what God desires for me. So often I see what God wants and I hear his voice and simply turn and run the other way because it is not what I would choose to do. Even though God has something absolutely incredible for me I continue to want things done my way and in my time. I fail to listen to my master’s call because I am so distracted by what is right in front of me.

Jackson from a few months ago

   As I continue to grow up in my spiritual life I am finding more and more that maturity does not come from some kind of hidden knowledge, it comes from humbling ourselves enough to learn from the simplest things in creation. God has great things for each of us if we listen when he calls and come when he asks.

 

Longing to Thrive

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, ¹⁰ so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,”

                                    -Colossians 1:9-11

I have been noticing lately that there is a staunch difference between living and thriving; and it was none other than my U.S. History class that has been showing me the difference. In order to understand what I mean you have to know a little bit of background on this particular class of students. They are a rowdy bunch that can talk a mile a minute until it comes to talking about class material. To them, everything else in this universe is more exciting than learning about Andrew Jackson’s Presidency or how a bill becomes a law. I do my very best to make lessons fun and exciting for them but for the most part it is to no avail. This particular class does everything they can to get me off track, to get out of homework, and to get under my skin. Sometimes their sinister plans work.  I have tried everything short of putting on a wig and bringing in a circus act to teach these kids the ins and outs of American History. The difficult thing about this whole situation has been that U.S. History is my favorite thing to teach and yet I cannot engage this group of students. There are times when I get discouraged and want to just give up on them. On bad days I think simply assigning them pages at the beginning of class and having them read the whole period only to give them review questions to do for homework just so I do not have to deal with their shenanigans. I have never actually done that but there have been many times when I have thought very seriously about it.

            This whole year I have been trying to assess the problem with this class and I have come to very few conclusions. I have tried everything I know how to do and nothing has seemed to work. I have tried to scare them into learning, I have tried to allow them to learn at their own pace, I have tried to make everyday  more fun than the last and each time I try something new I come up empty handed and more defeated. Now before you start calling me thinking that I have fallen into a state of depression because of this class just wait for the good part. Last Friday I realized something, I began to see that their lack of interest in,not only my subject but in school as a whole is not my fault. I discovered that the age old teachers’ question, “How do I motivate my students?” is simply not the question to ask. I had been looking for answers to this question and as a result I was killing myself trying to motivate these kids. I realized that I cannot motivate my students, I cannot force feed them learning, I just cannot. What I can do is help them motivate themselves. Each student is responsible for his or her actions, and when they realize that they have to account for the actions of their lives they begin to work, they begin to take interest, they begin to long for something better than just living-they long to thrive.

            Although my 16 year olds have not been able to grasp this concept of thriving quite yet and I have very little hope that they will in the near future, I can say that this idea has changed the way that I teach and the way I live. Sometimes it seems like I just roll through my day without even thinking. I act like my students. I forget that every breath I take and every word I say reverberates in heaven.  Therefore, my challenge has been to “live a life worthy of the LORD”. I have been challenged to stop living and start thriving! In my classroom I have begun to do this by putting my whole self into teaching, I am putting more time and effort into the personal relationships I have developed with my students. I have started praying for them by name. In my personal life, I have been taking every opportunity to invest in people rather than things. Thriving has taken on a new meaning to me, it has come to mean that my life is not mundane or ordinary, it is quite extraordinary and thus I should be living as the main character in story of my life instead of the supporting actress. This concept is true for all of us. We are created in the image of God so by definition we are extraordinary so let us all start living a life worthy of the LORD.

I Believe in Miracles

 Taste and see that the Lord is good.Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!  - 

                                                                                                                              Psalm 34:8                   

I suppose I have always believed in miracles and my grandmother was a big part of that. She would always tell me about the little miracles that God was working in her life everyday and then she would ask me how I saw God working in my life. She would tell me about how God helped her find a parking spot at Wal-Mart or how she looked all over for something and finally she would find it. To me it seemed like she could find God’s hand in everything. She would look outside and see miracles in nature; she would look inside and see miracles in me. Most people say they believe in miracles but she was the first person who showed, she was the first person who lived like they believed. Via her influence I started looking for miracles. I started looking for times when God would break through the humanly limits of space and time and reach is hand down to interrupt the usual course of human events.  The thing is that I always justified what I saw and experience. There have always been miracles big and small around me but I never saw them for what they were; that is until I went to Africa.

                When I went to Africa in 2009, I think that my senses were heightened to the spiritual presence around me. It was a mission trip so I assumed that God would be working. I took it as a mandate of the trip that I would see God working miraculously though my team because those are the types of things that happen in Africa. I was aware that it was God’s hand when we were in dangerous situations and nothing happened to us. I was aware of God’s protection and provision when our cabin was broken into and we were unharmed. I understood that it was only through God’s grace that the finances were there for me to even go. I saw those miracles because I wanted to see them. I can see now that this miracle anticipation was preparation for what was to come.

                I now live in a community that is all too familiar with miracles. If you do not believe that miracles occur come on down to Riverside and I will prove to you that they do. Just this year we have experienced some incredible acts of God. From finances to transportation to new appliances and new students, Riverside has experienced the hand of God. We have seen God do marvelous things both large and small. At first I wondered why in the world would God chose this place and these people to show His power. I wondered why there was such a concentration of Heavenly intervention in such a place. Then I remembered what my Grammy had taught me about miracles. God is constantly working in our lives. He wants to show his face to those who live in anticipation of seeing it. And that is exactly what is happening at Riverside. This year we are living in anticipation that God is doing and is going to continue doing a good work here at Riverside. He wants to give us good things. Every day I see more and more that God is not stingy and the things that he does for us are out of love, unrelenting love. God opened my eyes in Africa to big miracles, he prepared me from childhood for little miracles and day by day he is showing me that no matter where I am and not matter what the circumstances he is ready to perform wonderful deeds for those who believe and call on his name. What a wonderful reality to live under! And trust me that is the reality of the Riverside Community.

                Continue to pray that our positive influence in the community will grow and that people will see our light shine in the darkness. Also pray that our kids will grow into spiritual leaders and that they too will have an understanding of the miracles surrounding them!  

In Need of a Good Pruning

Conviction. It is a tough thing that we all must deal with when we are truly trying to live a life that is pleasing to the LORD. Sometimes it comes all at one time, sometimes it comes gradually; but all the time it is no more than we can handle. I suppose since we are somewhat of a community I can share that I have been convicted of many things as of late. It seems that the spiritual season I am in lately calls for a much needed pruning. I have to tell you all that it has literally taken me months to write this. After you read this post you might be thinking, “Cassie, this is nothing special…why in the world did it take you so long to type and post it.” Well, here is the answer, God would not let me post anything else but this blog. I could not think, I could not type, I could not write about anything but the season of life in which I am living. So just know that I did not want to post this entry, I had to! I did not want to make my struggles vulnerable to people. I wanted to keep what I was feeling to myself until one day at school when I was talking to my kids about our responsibility to the Christian community and I realized that it is only by our willingness to share that we are able to trust one another. So here we go…

                When I was a kid at camp we always used to sing “The Peach of the Savior”. One line in that song never really made sense to me until I learned about grape vines and apple trees. The line goes… “He prunes back the branches when the branches get to high. He bears fruit in season and his love will never die…” If you know anything about gardening then this line makes perfect sense but to a person who cannot keep a pansy alive the idea of cutting a plant in order to make it bear fruit is completely illogical. I assumed that you had to let the good things flourish in order for them to produce the kind of fruit you wanted, you just needed to get rid of the weeds ( I know at least that much from growing up on a farm). This past spring I learned an important lesson from the apple trees in my parents’ backyard.

                The trees had seriously overgrown and instead of producing large delicious apples within arm’s reach they were producing small sour apples at the very tip-top of the tree which was well over 12 feet tall. One day my dad said that it was long past time to prune the trees so it was my job to do the research to find out what needed to be done in order to help the trees produce good fruit. When I researched I found some interesting information. First, you cannot just prune a tree whenever you want you have to do it in the appropriate season. Second, you must remove all troublesome branches even branches that look healthy. This has to be done so that the shape of the tree can be maintained and so that the really crucial fruit baring branches can get all the sunlight they need. By the end of the day our apple trees looked almost like stumps. When my mom came home she was convinced that we had destroyed the trees. It will take the trees a few seasons and some more good pruning to finally produce fruit but the initial pruning after years of overgrowth was the first step to having delicious fruit.

                What does all this pruning business this have to do with you or with me? Well I will not go into the details but God has been pointing out some areas in my life that need to be pruned. And the first stage is conviction. Whether it be in Bible study or through a lesson I am doing with my kids there have been convicting reminders of the trouble areas in my spiritual walk. Thankfully God is not a malicious gardener. He is kind and loving while being firm. He prunes for our own good and in the perfect season. The second stage is our responsibility on how to react to the conviction placed on our hearts by the Master Gardener. Will we allow him to prune back the branches when the branches get too high? For me, there have been several things that I was holding onto that I simply would not let God prune in me and they were causing problems in my spiritual life; anything from gossip to laziness I would make excuses for the lack of discipline in my life . In many areas I was growing but through these negative attitudes I was producing sour fruit.  It is my desire to produce good fruit and yet so often I allow the bad branches to grown and take over. I am no where near perfect, but Christ has not called me to be perfect. He has called me to be mailable and seek to honor him with my life. It is in times like this that I know my Savior truly loves me, “He chastens those he loves”.  

     As I jump into a new semester at school I am going in with a new attitude and a new perspective on the people and the situations that God has placed in my path. I am excited to see what God has in store for all of us at Riverside this semester. We are praying fervently for the students and each of their personal relationships’ with Jesus Christ. Continue praying that our impact on the community would be influential for the Kingdom and that the lives of our students would being to transfer out to others the love that is being poured into them.