Be prepared, but don’t fret

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Philippians 4:6-7 (The Message)

You know how sometimes you can be dreading something and then, when it is all over you wonder what all the worry was for? At work, we’ve been wound up about a presentation to our county’s teachers about History Fair. We were generously given time during in-service workshops to talk to the theater, gifted and social studies teachers. In a whirlwind speaking tour, we talked to three different groups at two different schools in less than an hour. Between the four of us, all new to their jobs but me, we made new flyers, copied handouts, wrote a guidebook and prepared speeches. We planned down to the minute of when we were to be in the different venues. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time. I know how anxious teachers are to get out of the required in-service and return to their classroom to prepare for the arrival of students. The theater and gifted teachers didn’t phase me. I only had to outline History Fair and invite them to partner with the social studies teachers in encouraging students to enter the competition. But, I was nervous about speaking to the social studies teachers because last year, there was a revolt among our county’s social studies teachers when the county dictated what they must teach down to the day that each subject had to be covered. The goal was that you could walk into any social studies classroom on any day and hear the same lesson by grade level. You can imagine how that went over. Please, people, just let the teachers teach. While they couldn’t say no to their bosses, they protested through saying no to anything other than the curriculum required and any outside activity suffered. Like ours. So, this year, we also worked to show them how History Fair can fit into their rigorous requirements by substituting it for one of the assigned projects. I think we made our point, but we will see how many students we end up with. In the end, the day went well, and I rewarded our staff with smoothies from McDonalds. We took a few minutes to rest after a job well done before diving into preparing a new exhibit that must be finished by next week. Today, we also celebrated at home. The success of my day’s activity is miniscule in comparison to the big news that youngest son’s girlfriend shared tonight. After a year long battle with brain tumors including a malignant one that was inoperable, M.’s dad was declared cancer free today. Much whooping and shouting in our neck of the woods, for it is nothing short of a miracle. No matter what you are facing, in the long run, there’s no sense worrying about it. Yes, certainly do what you can to make things go smoothly or as in M.’s dad’s case, use medicine available for your ills. But, in the end, God’s got it all under control and that’s all you really need to know.