What Would You Have Been?

There were things I never dreamed of being when I grew up - and among them are all of the things I actually have done since growing up. 

That isn't new information to those of you who have read here for a while. You know that my journey through Financial Aid, radio, public speaking, and now even our new job were never things I imagined. (Some of them weren't even things I knew existed when I was younger.) I've loved the career roads God has allowed me to travel, even though some stretches haven't been easy.

But my dream as a child was to become a teacher. I loved playing school. I loved teaching my dolls, all lined up in a row on the fireplace. I loved playing with leftover worksheets from my mom's classroom. I loved listing grades in my homemade gradebook - strategically crafted inside an old notebook the same color as our teachers' actual gradebooks. 

I've told you before how grateful I am that God has allowed me to experience the joy of teaching, even though I don't have a classroom of my own. He's allowed me to teach Sunday School classes and Bible studies. He's allowed me to teach through each of my jobs - and is still allowing me to teach in this job, actually! He's given me the chance to teach through writing and mentoring. 

God isn't limited by our dreams. He can make them go beyond what we can even imagine.

But when I think about my once-upon-a-time teacher dream, I think about the teachers of 2020 and what an enormous task they face. 

I watched a social media video from one earlier this week as she shared (in tears) how she hadn't expected the physical ramifications of teaching while wearing a mask. She has a large classroom with students spread out to all the corners, and she said in order to speak loudly and distinctly enough to be heard throughout the room and over the mask, she ended up repeatedly sucking it into her mouth and choking on it. She said she hadn't expected to feel so low on oxygen and to get dizzy and see stars. And at the end of the first day, her husband was in her classroom, trying to figure out how to reconfigure it so the students were still safely distanced, but she would be able to be more easily heard and not choking on her mask.

I can't imagine.

I have friends teaching in person, friends teaching virtually, and friends teaching both ways at once. I have friends still in the classroom and those already out on quarantine because of classroom exposure. I have friends stepping into homeschooling for the first time because virtual learning didn't fit their children or they wanted more consistency than the thought of being in and out of school all year.

I can't imagine. 

Being a teacher in 2020 is not for the faint of heart, and I applaud all of you who are filling that role in any capacity. 

I'm grateful to be a teacher in the ways God has allowed me to be a teacher - outside the classroom. I still wonder now and then what life would have looked like if I had pursued that dream. I wonder where and what I'd be teaching. I wonder if I would have ended up liking it as much as I think I would have. 

What about you? What did you want to be when you were growing up - and are you doing it?