Epiphany - 8-5-10

Epiphany. Like, total epiphany. I mean, you look up the word in the dictionary and you’ll see this entry.

.

I actually had it the first week of summer and just hadn’t gotten around to putting pen to paper about it.

.

I do not want kids yet.

.

And I haven’t changed my mind with my moods.

.

I was at Rachel’s house helping her out with her four kids. We watched a movie and just chilled out. It was nice. And her kids really are adorable. Like picture-book adorable. Funny with the twins stealing every flip-flop they could find and Braedon totally absorbed in his DS game, and Savanna settling in my arms and resting her head on my chest as we watched the movie.

.

And I somehow left there with the dawning conviction that I absolutely, positively did not want children of my own yet. Rachel’s kids are just normal kids. They’re not demons or completely out-of-control kids. But Rachel still had to constantly redirect them, discipline them, negotiate with them, explain to them, remind them, warn them – oh, my God, it’s what I’ve gone through every frickin’ day of my job for six years! I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. I don’t care that they would be mine and I’d think their poo was precious. It ain’t happening yet.

.

Now let me clarify exactly why this is such an earth-shaking revelation for me specifically.

.

Every woman I know has said they want children, just not yet. That’s all I heard from every woman who didn’t already have kids: “not yet.” “Someday.” “Down the line.”

.

I never understood that.

.

See, I’ve never known a time in my life when I didn’t wish I had kids right then. But I was always too young or didn’t have the man yet or wasn’t established in my own life. There was always a reason (or two or three) why I “wasn’t ready.” But I felt ready. So all I’ve known is being held back by life. Like life just couldn’t – or wouldn’t – catch up with me. Never have I really known contentment in my childlessness. I only knew resignation. I knew about the frustrations and fears and stresses and sleeplessness. I just loved and wanted my unborn children more.

.

So now, to actually say and believe that I do not want children yet . . . well, I can’t get used to the feel of the words on my tongue. I keep saying it, hearing my voice wrap around the words. I do not want kids yet.

.

And that wouldn’t even be so noteworthy, even knowing the background behind the statement, if this newfound conviction wasn’t so passionate. For a long time now, probably two years or more, I haven’t been able to find children cute or charming. When they do cute kid things like holding their jumbo marker in their chubby fist and scrawling out backward letters, or skipping words in their oh-so-adorable baby sentences, or giving you sticky kisses – doesn’t matter. If it’s cute, I turn away. And turn away with an angry disgust. The sheer vehemence with which I instinctively stay away from all children is Exhibit A in the case against teaching for me. It is evidence for how badly scarred I am by this profession.

.

This isn’t normal. It isn’t right. And it’s not healthy for me, because I was made to have children. That certainly hasn’t wobbled. My children are still and always will be the reason I have gone through all of this. This life of mine is my legacy for them.

.

I just can’t stand to think of them right now in all their helpless grasping and arguing and whining and disobedience. Can’t do it. Sorry.

.

My love for children is merely lacerated ribbons of flesh. I am wounded down deep into my soul. I need more healing in this area, by far and away, than in any other area of my life. I need God to restore me, to rebuild me, so I can see a child and soften, so I can smile. And I know with all certainty – no question, no debate – that if I stay in teaching, I will not heal. In fact, every day I am around children at this point is more damage done that will have to be undone. Even committing this job to God as I did last year will only do so much to arrest the gouging, and there will be no healing. I have to get out, and get out now, to begin healing because it’s going to take time. I can’t see having children inside of several years, and I’m already 31. I don’t want to waste any more of my time with my children.

.

So this all brings me to the most direct, visceral test of my faith yet, a test I needed this past year to prepare for. I truly believe I need to resign my job as a teacher and trust that Central Corp will take me on “at need.” This goes against EVERY grain I have, and yet I feel so good about it. It feels so right. As soon as I really considered the idea, my heart took flight in the rightness of this unforgivably foolish decision. I’ve kept thinking for the past several months, when Central Corp got stirred back into the mix, that if I stayed until October and then left for the Management Training Program, that would be harder on everyone: my principal scrambling to fill the position mid-year, my teammates who would have to renegotiate the team dynamics with an unknown, my kids who would have just gotten settled into the way I run things, the parents who would have started becoming comfortable with me, and most of all for that poor new teacher who is getting thrown bodily into the deep end. Because it would be a brand new teacher – at that point in the year, every experienced teacher would already be under contract and the bright-eyed young lemmings would be the only ones left to jump off the cliff. And this year is going to be hard enough with even more SOLs and more pressure on the third-grade team for the scores from last year. I can’t imagine how hard that already tremendously difficult year would be if that untried newbie had to hit the ground running. And I wouldn’t be there to mentor him or her like I did last year, and no one else is really good at that.

.

So just from that angle, it would be best for the whole school, the third-grade team, and the class of unsuspecting demonspawn if my replacement, bless her ignorant heart, had a fighting chance. And a running start. Even if she didn’t have the common sense to use it to run for the door.

.

And for me, I need to get out. Just as Jessica finally bit the bullet and didn’t renew her contract so she could be a free agent for other teaching jobs, I have to do this for my own health. Because my perspective on all children, including my own, is far from healthy.

.

And one thing I have learned from this past year is that God is worthy of complete trust. Not provisional, not conditional, not occasional. Complete. And as John Eldredge says, “In the past year or so I’ve made a number of decisions that make no sense unless there is a God and I am his friend.”

.

An email I received a couple of days ago seemed to foreshadow this idea: “If someone wants ‘A’ to happen, yet they prepare for ‘B,’ they will always get ‘B.’ Prepare for ‘A.’”

.

That is exactly this situation. As long as I’m holding on to this job I abhor with every fiber of my being, when I know it’s not God’s will for me, simply because it’s “safe, then what I’m really saying is, “God I don’t really think you’ll make Central Corp happen. I don’t really think you can take care of me unless I’m taking care of myself first.”

.

Central Corp is what I want. I have persisted for two years, longer than I’ve persisted with anything except this cursed job. And I believe God will meet me at the crucible of my faith. I won’t see him do amazing things until my actions correspond with my enormous belief. This is not coming out of some foolish, rebellious, prodigal-son short-sightedness. I have always been sensible. Never in my life have I ever even casually entertained the notion of leaving a job unless I already had another one lined up. That’s just foolishness. But isn’t there that funny paradox that the world’s wisdom can be foolish in God’s eyes, and foolishness in the eyes of the world can be the direct command of God? Look at Abraham. He was called out of Ur, the only place he had ever known, to a land he had never been – the wilderness – based on a promise and his belief in that promise. Do you think he had a lot of people slapping him on the back, saying, “Atta boy, Abram!”? Uh, no.

.

I know that I know that I know that I can’t be in a classroom one more day. I also know that I know that I know that God is my friend and is waiting to show off in an impossible situation. And I know that I know that I know that this act is an “act prompted by faith” (2 Thessalonians 1:11), not an off-shoot of immaturity and folly.

.

It’s what I need to do, and I’m ready to leap into the chasm of God’s blessings head-first and blind-folded. The time for my freedom is at hand!