When I rolled out of bed the next morning, I was pretty mad at myself. If I could have just shut up my brain for like 30 minutes, maybe I would have gone straight to sleep. Maybe I would've even gotten good sleep! Now, I would never know, and the thirty minutes between waking and walking out the door were over in the blink of an eye.
I had done little to prepare for the school week other than read the text my kids would be studying and preparing a slideshow for Monday's vocabulary lesson. I was supposed to be formally observed this week because I had missed the observation schedule. I kept reminding myself that I had already resigned. I didn't actually care how the observation turned out - plus I had been gone for five weeks. She wouldn't expect it to be perfect. If she even came in today.
I shook the anxieties from my head as I grabbed my backpack and decaf coffee and got out of the car. When I walked into the office, there were a few people who said welcome back, but otherwise I went pretty much unnoticed. I walked past a few of my students who all stopped talking when they saw me. I said good morning, and so did they. It was like I had never left.
So I went up to my room and got ready for the day like I had been here all along. Friday I had been here. My coteachers came and said hello and welcome back. As the bell rang for the students to enter the school, I took a deep breath. Maybe it would feel like I had never left.
At this point, I'm going to tangent into a related story. Because I love writing and editing, I often edit my siblings papers in exchange for their undying gratitude and love. The most recent paper I read was about a text called "The Waiting," and this line at the end of the story has lingered with me since I completed editing her paper - especially as I drove home from school that first day back.
The narrator astutely says "...it is less difficult to endure a frightful happening than to imagine it and endlessly await it..." It was as if the author peered into my soul. When I read this, I remember thinking: Oh my gosh so true. Why have I never put that into words myself? I think I do that pretty much every day. (Hello, over-thinker).
As I said, when I was driving home after school, I was kicking myself as this line reverberated in my mind. I could've slept. I could have even had happy dreams! Not only were the kids happy to have me back (or at least kind enough not to act otherwise), but I had students from last semester who came to hunt me down and give me a hug, and teachers who I rarely spoke to who stopped me in the hall and asked both how I had been and how my first day back was.
How often do we give ourselves sleepless nights over things that have yet to come? Why do we dwell in fear? I tend to shoot my trusty "Jesus, I trust in you" up to Heaven which helps for a moment, but I think the consistent fear reveals something so much deeper. At least for me, the more time I have to reflect and actually take a look at myself the more I have found that all of my fears are simply a lack of surrender and trust. God floods the Bible with wonderful tidbits for us to remember about how we have no reason to fear, how we have every reason to trust Him, and yet somehow that human hubris - that need for control and the knowledge that allows for that control - still infects us.
What's worse now is that I know that's the problem. So now, I just get angry at myself. Anytime fear of childbirth creeps under my skin, I start having this internal telling off. Don't you trust Him? If yes, then just let it go! If no, then get there! I haven't quite had the time or experience to master this one, but perhaps if I keep praying for it, God will grant me the wisdom to truly Let Go of my fear and Let God give me peace.
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