Day 1 of the Best of My Life

Today was Day 1.  I have stepped out in faith this year with a new job.  A new harvest of kiddos.  I plan to do right by them.  This is day 1 of  Action toward my goals.  I am no longer going to sit on the sidelines of life and let it pass me by.  Here are a few of my first steps.  They will be small to begin with, but I will take them.  
My day as follows:

• at 5am I had a snack and quiet time
• At 6am, Fit camp for an hour
• Gym-Cardio for 20 minutes
• Began my first full day in my classroom
• Began this blog post and fell asleep typing

These are baby steps.  No more talk.  It's time to walk the talk.   I look forward to see where my decisions take me this year.  

Walking by faith,

“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
~Hebrews 11:6

Never a Dull Moment

I work at a childcare center with an awesome harvest of three year old kiddos that God has so graciously blessed me with.  Yesterday was a day where some precious memories were made.  It started with one of my kiddos in line to wash her hands.  She said, "Watch this!" and she proceeded to cross her eyes.  We both laughed and she said, "My brother taught me that."

Snack time is always an exciting part of the day, and yesterday we had yogurt and animal crackers.  After a bit, I had several requests for more animals crackers, but there were not enough crackers to go around.  I announced to the class that there weren't enough and to eat what they were given.  All of a sudden, I hear this painful cry from one of my kiddos.  I asked, "What is wrong?" He looked up at me and said, "You made me sad."  I grabbed my mouth and walked away so I wouldn't laugh in front of him.  He wanted more animal crackers, and I squashed his dreams.

Later on, I caught another child who had already eaten her snack at another table with a snack in front of her. I didn't see her actually eating her friend's snack, but the opened yogurt and half eaten animal cracker on top indicated otherwise.  I asked her, "Did you eat this snack?" She answered back with no.  I asked again, when another friend spoke up and said, "Her nose is getting longer."

These are the moments when my job doesn't feel like a job.  I get to do life with amazing kiddos and look at life through their perspective.  It is a refreshing glimpse of the simplicity of life.  They make me smile, laugh, and enjoy my time with them.  There is never a dull moment, and I never know what a day will bring.

Laborers of the Harvest

Labor (noun)
1. a. Physical or mental exertion, especially when difficult or exhausting; work.
    b. Something produced by work.
2. A specific task.
3. A particular form of work or method of working: manual labor.
4. Work for wages.

Labor (verb)
1. To work; toil: labored in the fields.
2. To strive painstakingly: labored over the needlepoint.
3.a. To proceed with great effort; plod: labored up the hill.
   b. Nautical To pitch and roll.
4. To suffer from distress or a disadvantage.

God has given me my new Harvest of Kiddos, and I now know what it means to be a laborer. Labor is hard work, exhausting, painful at times, but ultimately rewarding.  My kiddos are a tough group, but I love them.  I am laboring in nearly all of the sense of the word for the glory of God.  I hope and pray that I am sending that message.  I will come up with some daily measureable goals such as reading my Bible each day before work. Journaling and praying daily.  Prayer can happen anywhere; I can pray on my way to work as long as I don't close my eyes while driving.  I can seek God in the moment rather than asking forgiveness after acting in the flesh.

Today in fact, I had to calm myself down with my own advice that I had given to a student earlier this morning.  I was getting emotional over something very little and insignificant in the big grand scheme of things.  God has called me to labor specifically with kids, but as a disciple, I am called to make disciples unto Christ.  Because labor is exhausting, hard, painful, physically and mentally demanding; I don't think many people want to be laborers. 

 Jesus states, "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest." (Matthew 9:36-38, emphasis added).

The laborers are few 
Few. As in not very many.  A little.  There are few people that want to labor for much of anything.  Of that few, there aren't many that want to labor for Christ by bringing lost souls to a saving knowledge of Christ and a transformed life as a disciple of Christ.

Pray ye therefore...

We can pray for laborers.  We can pray for each other and hold each other accountable as laborers for Christ.  I seek to be a laborer in the harvest for eternity's sake.  As of right now, God has given me a ripe harvest of kiddos with hearts that are breaking with the desire to be loved and understood.  I pray I can be the laborer to till the hearts of these kiddos and plant some positive seeds of love, Christ's love, and acceptance in their hearts.

Are you a laborer?

Are you working for the Lord in the harvest He has prepared for you?  Are you working the land and planting the seed in the hearts of those around you?  God never said it would be easy, but He did promise to be there through it all.

 For the Glory of God,