Trust and Obey

I am a procrastinator. Or I have many things on my plate so I don’t always do things right away. Or I’m sporadically lazy. Something like that. Why I’m thinking about that today:

When I think about the end of this year, and how it’s coming rapidly, I think about how I wish I’d made a bigger impact on my students, or loved them more, or just been better somehow. When you get to the end of something, that’s when you really wish you could have done so much more than you did, at least that always happens to me. I want to leave behind the best possible memories, feelings, gifts, inspirations, experiences and lessons when I leave. Today when looking at my lesson plan for Wednesday, I realized I will only teach grade ones 12 more music classes, at the most. And then I might never see them again! Then I started to think.. oh I wish I’d done this, or that, or tried harder, or done more. And I started to accuse myself of being a procrastinator once again, as has happened before.

BUT

when I look back over the year, I spent so much of it climbing a huge learning curve, very little sleeping, and lots of stress. If I look at what I didn’t do, sure, there’s lots I didn’t do. Some stuff that I wanted to but didn’t (hence the procrastinating) and some stuff that I just never even thought of. But what about what I DID do?

I think we are often too hard on ourselves. Maybe in general the North American culture is not hard enough on itself, but in my family and in my circles of life, I think it tends to go the other extreme. At least for me. I look at what I ‘should have’ accomplished, rather than be proud or thankful or appreciative of what I did do.

I want to look back at this year (and life, to be honest) and be able to say something to the effect of: “I struggled and fought, I hung onto God like a lifejacket sometimes, but I did the best that I could. In the circumstances I was in, with the wisdom God gave me, I did as well as I knew how.”

Because God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. He knows we’ll never make it. So why oh why do I treat myself like I should be perfect?  I can look back at my late nights looking for lesson plan ideas, writing music for Plautdietsch songs, desperately trying to learn guitar, my many many Spanish mistakes, and all the other things I didn’t do up to my standards, and not be ashamed! I trust God that the effort put in will hopefully reap somewhere down the road, ultimately it is up to HIM. It was intended for His glory and kingdom, I can only trust and obey.

 One of my attempts at teaching guitar, this one in my grade 4 class. Yes the boy on the left is lying on his back to read his book. Order reigns.