School started last Tuesday. By all indicators, we’re off to a good start. Of course everyone is trying to get back into the rhythm of school again, including me. My voice has been a bit hoarse from talking more than usual and I’m sleeping a bit more. After our first day of school, I came home, ate supper and then proceeded to sleep for the next eleven hours.
In class, my students are also having to get used to being back in school. After about ten minutes of sitting, they begin to squirm and fidget in their seats. There were a few students in particular that were having trouble one day remembering how to listen with their mouths shut and their bodies still. As I encouraged them to discipline themselves, I was reminded of a time not so long ago when I was struggling to sit still.
We were about five hours into our flight from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Tokyo. While five hours is a long time to sit shoe-horned into a seat designed for people much shorter than I, I was finding a way to enjoy the trip. Unfortunately, the eleven hour flight wasn’t schedule to end for another six hours. Suddenly minutes began to feel like hours. The little airplane projected on the flight map that the airlines use to mark the flight’s progress seemed to stop moving. For the next six hours, I tried to direct my thoughts from my present reality. The truth was, I really didn’t want the airplane to make an early landing, especially in the water! I found myself concentrating on the hope that the pilot would get us to Tokyo safely and as quickly as possible. In the end, that’s just what happened. While I understand the physics behind flight, I still find it amazing that in just eleven hours a person can travel over 6000 miles. And thanks to the skill of the pilot, land right where everyone expects to go.
This memory changed the way I felt about the students struggling to focus in class. Suddenly, I realized that they were feeling kind of like I did as a passenger on the airplane. The primary difference was that they, or their parents, were counting on me, the teacher/pilot, to get them where they needed to go, safely and as quickly as possible. As my feelings towards the students changed so did my actions. I suddenly felt a wealth of patience to draw from as I continued to encourage them to discipline themselves so that they and the rest of their classmates could be successful in class.
One maxim that I repeat often is that God’s people’s biggest problem is amnesia. They forget what God has done for them. Today I give thanks for the gift of memories; memories that God can use to help mold this lump of clay into something pleasing to Him.
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