Prayer: Dear Lord, We pray today that You will work in each of our co-worker’s and student’s lives. We want each one to know You, Lord, and accept Jesus as Savior. Thank You that You love them more than I do. In Jesus’ name, Amen

Scripture: So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching. Rom 12:5-7 NAS

I don’t know of any other occupation which makes more use of gifts and talents than the teacher. Teaching offers such versatility in using our gifts. For the right-brained among us, we can be as creative as we want to be. We can play music in the background of the classroom. We can use art in virtually any subject area.  We can incorporate social skills daily. The classroom is an absolute study in sociology. Those left-brained teachers among us can use charts and grafts to our brain’s content. We can explain our lessons with powerpoints, collect data, and compile ledgers.  How can any teacher be bored?

“I can tell you love your job!”  students tell me.

“You tell every student he’s your favorite,” says another.

They’re right! I love my job, and my favorite student is always the one right in front of me.

I am not a new teacher, so no one can tell me that this will pass. I’m over sixty years old, yet I’m more excited about teaching today than I was at the beginning of my career.

There are times when I come home exhausted. I have shed my share of tears until I got the hang of keeping my joy amid chaos (by singing to myself all day long as I walked the corridors from classroom to classroom). But I never ceased to feel significant.

Some people see teachers as wanting to go into the profession for the great holiday schedule. I have to agree that I love those stretches of time. But, like many other teachers, I can’t stay away from teaching! Some teachers staff summer school classes. Others are camp counselors. As for me, I spend my spring and summer “vacations” teaching believers from God’s Word in other countries!  What a blessing to have a profession that offers so much richness and that is portable! I can take my teaching skills all over the world.

Can you tell I love it?

Copyright Cheryl Skid. To connect with the author, email cskid@ceai.org

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