A Day in the Life

You know, my job may not be galmerous, I get to work at 10 till 9 every morning then report to Mrs. Hefner and Mrs. Fannin's classroom to find out my jobs for that day. They are useually the same with just a couple changes here and there. My jobs consist of, but are not limited to, taking care of the trash, cleaning tables, preparing snack, watching the kids as they do their work (making sure they stay focused),keeping an eye on the bathroom when one is in there, keeping an eye on them as they play to keep fights from breaking out, helping the kids clean up, calming down this one girl that always cries, looking after a certain boy when we go outside because he has some issues and needs extra help and attention, help them paint and help them get their backpacks on and jackets zipped. Oh and running random errands for other teachers around the center.
After lunch I go back to work at 10 till 1, this time reporting to Mrs. Meade's classroom. In there I do the same things but when her assistant, Penny, isnt there (like these past two weeks) I take on Penny's jobs too. IE: Teaching them how to make their numbers, stopping fights, solving difficult problems for the children, and running the class when Mrs. Meade has to step out for a minute.
At 3:30 I go across the hall to Mrs. Terri's and Mrs. Pam's room to relieve Pam as she goes upstairs. Terrie leaves earlier so it is just me with the kids. I pretty much just let them play since they are the daycare kids and have been there all day. We play lots and lots of duck,duck,goose, and do lots of puzzles, on nice days (like today) we go outside for about an hour.
So by the time 5 O'clock comes around and I am getting in my car to leave work I have washed 9 different tables about 3 times each (27 times total!!!), taken out the trash at least twice, stopped about 7 fights or so, taken care of 2 or 3 crying children, read 1 or 2 stories, helped about 31 different kids write their names, organized papers, zipped about 40 jackets, watched the bathroom about 5 times, prepared snack for about 31 kids, and walked up and down the hall countless times.
My job can get long, boring, and tiring. Everyday is different and often has a new challenge. Sometimes at the end of the week I find myself asking "God, why do You want me to do this?" But then there are moments like this morning that make it all worth it.
I am changing the kids' names for their safty but this morning there were these two kids, Evan and Abby. Evan has some issues where he needs lots of one on one attention. He gets frustrated and sometimes doesnt get things very fast. Abby is a little girl who is always trying to follow the rules and get her work done. Today free time started out as any other day. All the kids rushed to the different toys and stations. Playing games and having a good time. Evan just watched or waked around the room, with no one to play with. But today Abby walked right up to him and asked him to play a game with her. She picked one of the easier games we have in the room and was explaining it to him. She took her time and even though it took the rest of her free time to play the game (an easy version of Bingo) she played with him. And Evan even won! I'm not sure if she let him win or not, but the smile it brought on his face was priceless. It was so touching to see little Abby care so much about Evan. As I watched to two kids play a thought came to me. "Why don't we do that more? Why don't we are Christians take time out of our busy day to be a blessing to someone in need." Abby was so selfless in giving up her free time with her friends to play with Evan. It was truely one of the sweetest things ever!
Though the days get long, the kids make it all worth. Their love, their smiles. They are the sweetest things.
So has I sit here on my bed at 5:57pm I look back over this day and say, "It was just another day in the life of a preschool teacher."

How Can I Help?

My friend texted me the other day and was telling me that her world is falling apart and nothing is going right. She said that she is losing everything and she wonders sometimes if life is even worth it. That pained me to hear and as any Christian friend would I started doing two things. 1. Praying for her and 2. I told her it would all be ok. Now here is the thing, she replied back asking me how I knew that.
I wanted so bad to tell her Romans 8:28 "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." The problem with that is that promise to work all things together for good, is for believers and sadly though she may think so this girl is not saved. I say that because their is no evidence of Christ in her life. She says that she is getting better from how she used to be, and that maybe true. Maybe she doesnt cuss so much, maybe she isn't a slut. But she is still living in sin and still following flesh rather then God. She has no promise that it is going to be ok.
In Ecclesiastes 1:2 it says " 'Vanity of vanities.' says the Preacher. 'Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.' " now the orignal Hewbrew word for vanity actually ment futial, useless, pointless. The book goes on to talk about how without Christ life has no purpose and no real point. So really, how can I tell her that everything is going to be ok for her when at this point in her life, she is not promised that?
In stead I told her Romans 8:28 and then added that that promise is for God's people. That if she surrenders her life, heart, soul to the Lord. Believes that Jesus died on the cross to take away her sins, and truely loves Him and means it when she repents of those sins asking Him to forgive her, then that promise is for her. I know there is more that needs to be said. She needs to hear more about who Christ is and what He did for her on the cross.
As her friend, and as someone who has a heart for the last, I do not want this girl to spend all of eternity in hell. I want to help her find the truth. But here is the million dollar question. How do you help someone see the truth when they believe that they already have it because of things they were told that are simple not true. Things like if you go to church and do good things then you will go to heaven. How can I help?

If you could please pray for my friend that would be great. If you could also pray for me that I may have wisdom on what to say to her that would be great too.

Peace, Love, and Hope
Sarah

What Do You Say?

When someone who trusts you and calls you a friend, but you do not feel that way about them, comes over and tells you about all the negitive things in their life; tells how everyone and everything is against them; tells you what people are saying about them and you agree with the other people; what do you say? When they are crying and pooring out their heart and all you want to say is "They're right." what do you say? When you know you need to say something, you know that if you are really a true friend you will tell them what they need to hear regardless if they like it or not, what do you say? When they are being self-centered, spoiled, annoying, overly dramatic, and acting like they are the victom when they are the villian, what do you say? When you share the love of Christ and they think they are already saved and have all the answers, what do you say? When you want to tell them what you are really thinking, but dont want to hurt them, what do you say?
What do you say?

Falling in Love With Him

My "sis" asked me resently if I believed that God could tell someone at 16 who it is they are going to marry. God can do anything and I know of a couple that happened too, but I knew she was referring to herself. So I got thinking about what to tell her and while I was pondering it and praying about it I was thinking about myself too. And I decided that though God could show either one of us who we are going to marry at any time in our lives, He most likely won't until we are ready for marrage in everyway.
Just a couple days before she and I had this conversation one of my dear friends was praying for me. A group of my friends and I get together on Saturday nights to pray for each other for a few hours so her praying for me wasn't because of anything certain thing in my life, it's just something that we do. Anyway while she was praying she paused for a second and started praying for my future husband, whoever he may be. And one thing that she said really stuck out to me, "Lord, don't being that guy into Sarah's life until she is so in love with You and she truly understands what love is and how much You love her. So that you will always be her first love and her main focus." I got thinking about that and how right she was. I am 18 and have the rest of my life ahead of me (though none of us no how much time we have). I dont need to be focused on boys or dating or getting married (not that I ever have been and if you know me you probably just laughed at the thought). I need to be focusing on my relationship with Christ.
My friends Rachel and Chris got married this past summer and one thing that was pointed out after their wedding was this. They exchanged vows promising to love each other with everything they have for the rest of their lives. Devoting themselves to learning as much as they can about the other. Agreeing to spend as much time together as they possibly can. Why is it as humans we can promise those sort of things to each other, but not to God? Why don't we say things like "Lord I promise that I am going to love YOU and YOU alone with EVERYTHING I have! I am going to learn as much about YOU as I possibly can! I am going to spend EVERY free moment I have with YOU." I want to do that. I am striving towards that. That is my hearts cry.Jesus gave us everything. Why not give Him our lives? He died for us, why can't we seem to live for Him?
This past summer I promised God that I was going to fully and completely surrender every aspect of my life to Him. And so far it's been a scary but excited adventure. It's been hard but worth it. I have become more aware of sin in my life and that is never fun to deal with, but it is so good. I'm not where I want to be in my walk with the Lord and honestly I will probably never be because I will always be a work in progress, I am never going to be perfect. But I am going to serve Him with everything I've got and I am going to get as close to Him as I can.I am falling more in love with Him everyday and I am going to continue to fall for the rest of my life.

Lord, "I'm falling for You. Please catch me," I am Your's and Your's alone!

.....

Sometimes life is hard,
Sometimes life isn't fair,
Sometimes life throws things at you,
Sometimes unexpected things happen in life
Sometimes life moves too fast

Life is exciting
Life is exhilarating
Life is full of adventure
Life is wonderful
Life is a gift from above.

Through all the ups and downs of life somethings stay the same, God is always there and will always be my rock. My family will always have my back and love me. And I will always be me.
I'm Dependant on God and these are my Notes From a Spinning Planet.