The past few years, I was waking up feeling ill as I prepared to walk into the classroom. Every day, I was losing my voice from yelling, since the kids were out of control. I felt powerless as most of my third-grade students were reading and writing at a kindergarten level, no matter how much help I gave them. I was in and out of the hospital because of the toll this job was taking on my body, and I was self-medicating by watching Netflix and sleeping in during all of my free time. I did not realize how distant from God I was growing.
After much prayer, God granted me a change in position from a classroom teacher to an ELD (English Language Development) teacher. Now, instead of working with 32 students at a time, I teach students English in groups of 4-8 for 30 minutes at a time (for me, a much more reasonable workload). Miraculously, the Lord has been faithful and has restored my joy of teaching (something I did not think was possible). Instead of running out of sick leave and taking mental health days like I did before, I have enjoyed coming into work daily and have had the bandwidth to teach with excitement, kindness, and joy. As a result, my students have been trusting me with their struggles and feel safe in my classroom.
God is also working in me to grow out of the bad habits and spiritual immaturity I had developed when I was feeling overwhelmed. In Psalm 51, David pleads for God to make him clean, wash away his iniquity, and create a pure heart inside of him. This Psalm beautifully illustrates my current journey to appreciate the career change God made for me and how I want to eradicate all the distractions I had become addicted to in order to cope with the turmoil of work. It is a slow process, but I am beginning to see myself produce more fruit because of my increasing dependence on God and understanding of His Goodness.
Resources
Not every challenging job requires leaving, but some do.
- How hard is your current work?
- What can you do (what have you done) besides leaving?
- What is God telling you?
- Do you have someone to process this challenge with?
