Teacher Diaries: Preparing for Student Teaching!

First: FINALS ARE DONE!!! My last undergraduate finals ever!!

Okay, on to the next thing: Those who know me, know that, especially when I'm nervous or stressed, I can be obsessively organized and almost never too prepared. Mind you, these aren't inborn traits--they were faithfully taught me by my mother (doesn't it always seem to go that way?) over many, many, MANY years--or at least 20-something! ;)

Anyways, I have this problem, because I deal with life by organizing everything super-obsessively. Now maybe this is good, maybe it's bad; but that's how I've survived college so it works! However, this big thing is coming down the road:

STUDENT TEACHING.

And nowhere can I find any good resource for organizing one's life during student teaching! The main theme seems to be "just survive." Which is good, but...it lacks in detail somewhat...

So I'm going to adapt some teacher organization ideas and create an organizing thing (or more than one...). And hopefully post some of it here for the benefit of any poor student teacher out there who stumbles across this part of the world. :) Also going to post some of the more odd/probably-unique-only-to-me things that I'm doing--because I'm hoping to use student teaching as a practice time to figure out how to do this next semester in real life!

Stay tuned! :)

Surrender: A Prayer

"Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part from them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of sun to shine in it, for Thyself will be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' Name, Amen." ~ A.W. Tozer 

A friend shared this--I thought it was very powerful. May we be willing to make a total surrender to Him!

Today's Thoughts

From prayer group...

1 Corinthians 13:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.8 Love never ends. ..."

And 1 John 4:8:

"Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."

So any time we see the word "love" in 1 Corinthians 13, we could replace it with "God." "God is patient and kind; He does not envy or boast; He is not arrogant or rude. God does not insist on His own way; He is not irritable or resentful; He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

"God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

All things, for our sakes. That some of us might turn and be with Him forever.

Lord, thank You for Your incredible love. Teach me to love as You do!