I have been teaching for 8 years now. I LOVE my job, however, the politics that I have encountered surrounding my job have made it frustrating, to say the least. To make a long story short, it has taken me 8 years to get a permanent position. Last year I became permanent. This meant that for the first time I not only knew where I was going to be the following September, but also I would enjoy my first experience of teaching at the same school two years in a row. It is so hard bouncing around between schools. You aren't able to build relationships with either colleagues or students, and it usually means a whole lot more planning due to each school having different resources to work with. But this no longer mattered, as I was permanent! I was praising God that I finally had reached this point.
A couple of weeks ago, I was called to a meeting where my department was told that we were overstaffed and unless someone volunteered to transfer to another school, the staff member with the least amount of seniority was going to be "surplused" (a nicer way of saying "kicked out and moved to another school"). That staff member happens to be me! I left the meeting, after being comforted by my colleagues (we all knew no one would volunteer), and wept on my way home. A couple of days later I received the official word that I no longer have a position at my school and would be transfered to another one - one which won't be made known to me for another month. Once again, I have found myself in what appears to be a system that seems to be working against me, and I just can't understand why.
I still don't understand why (or even the logistics of where I will be teaching next year), but there is something I do know. God sees me. I am studying a book called The Names of God, and there is one that I has spoken to me greatly. It is El Roi: the God who sees me. I have been so comforted by this. At the time that I was studying this name, I felt its comfort in the middle of the nights as I fed my newborn son. God saw me; He saw my tiredness and my needs. Now, months later, I am drawn to this name again. I feel as if I have been caught up in a whirlwind that I have no control over. It would seem (at least to me and my lack of divine knowledge) that this whirlwind is destructive. It is a force that I have no control over, but that is throwing me about without concern for where I want to be and what I want to have happen. But as I am uncontrollably swirling about in the vortex, God is watching, and He sees me - He may have even created the wind so as to bring about change to continue His plans for me. Either way, He is watching me. He sees the disappointment that I am feeling. He knows of the anxiety I have of moving to yet another school, and He knows where the wind will place me. While it appears that the wind is in control of me, I need to remember that even the wind is at the mercy of my God. I am choosing to replace my anxiety and disappointment with trust. Trusting in God seems easier when you know you are trusting in El Roi.
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