The closer I get to student teaching the more butterflies I have in my stomach. It’s not that I am worried whether I will do well or whether I will enjoy it. I am more nervous about the fact that I feel my future starting. I feel in encroaching on my sweet college lifestyle. I am savoring my last mornings of sleeping in and watching the morning shows on T.V. I am savoring the late nights with roommates and the hours spent in coffee shops. I am savoring this community of believers that I am surrounded by. I am savoring the encouragement that I have felt, especially lately.

And then I look at those last sentences and a feeling of nervousness for my future. Will I have such good times when I actually get a job and start teaching? Also, will I get a job, will I be able to have the experience of teaching that I desire? So many questions about the future! I know that if my future was settled, if I knew exactly where I was headed and the path was clear, that I would have no reason to depend on God and his sovereignty, grace, strength, power, mystery, and majesty. I would depend on myself and that is not what I want.

But when I sit here and work on my portfolio and think about those sixth graders that I got to hangout with, I smile and breath really deep. Those little faces and smiles are one of the reasons that I am nervous excited. Their joy in life and their curiousness and their giggles are encouraging. I get to influence a generation in some way. I get to be apart of those students lives. Whether they forget me or not, I still get to be apart of that. That’s exciting, that’s sweet!

That might sound cheesy and idealistic, because I know there is a bunch of other administrative and political crap that goes into teaching, but there is this little dream that in my mind that I never want squished out. I want to impact students’ lives to the glory of God! I want to be used in their lives in some way. I pray and hope that my experience next semester would encourage me more in that dream than anything else.