I'm starting to realize that my past and my future are two things I'll never figure out. I remember that just over three years ago, I thought I would be going to school at a technical college, learning to be an IT professional. Then, a year later, I was so sure I was going to Evangel in Springfield to be a youth minister. Now, I'm going to the University of Central Missouri to become a high school English teacher. What happened? Where did all my plans go? Why did they keep changing? I remember that in my plans, I had also already met the love of my life and we were dating happily. Currently, I'm a single college student with no romantic interests and a part-time job that I literally live paycheck to paycheck. Not exactly what I had all planned out in my mind.
It's funny, but what changed all this time was me. I should have known that teaching was in my future. Just about every teacher I had since the third grade told me I should be a teacher. I was always the kid who, during in-class homework time, explained to the ones who just didn't understand how to do the assignment. I remember having dozens of teachers sit back and watch me patiently explain to one, two, three, up to six other students what it was they missed. I remember being told I should be a teacher, and I always had the same response, "I don't want to be a teacher, I'm not patient enough for it." However, I was blind to what was there. I was patient enough. I know that in many areas of my life, patience is something I could benefit from. Yet, set me off to teach and I'll spend all day if that's what it takes. I didn't realize this was true at first, then other time I started to see what all those teachers where talking about.
Now, it's more of one of those things where God is speaking to you and telling you what He wants for your life. I couldn't see the "forest through the trees," so to speak. He had placed in my life so many opportunities to teach, and a took on so many of them. Yet, I never saw what I was really doing. So, in His divine knowledge, He sets it up so I have one of those "the light finally came on moments." God has to do that to us sometimes. I know He did for me. Any way, He placed such an interest for writing in me that I knew, when it was said and done that I wanted to go to school for English. (At the time, I was already accepted at Evangel. However, thanks to the family God had placed into my life, I was able to see that there was no way I could honestly afford that school, nor was it practical for me to go to school there. Because of their love and care for me, I was able to apply to Central Missouri State University, now the University of Central Missouri.) So, I went for a tour of the UCM campus and met with one of the professors of the English department and told him my plan. I was going to write books. He said that was a good plan, but asked if I ever considered teaching. It was presented more as if I hadn't thought about how I would support myself while I was writing "America's next great novel," but the point hit me. I realized something. I could claim and claim that teaching isn't for me, but when you get down to it, I love teaching. I absolutely love teaching. I am not the most patient person, as I've already said. However, I am so patient with people when it comes to teaching them, and my teachers could see that. Now, because there were people who cared enough about me to help me and guide me, I am well on my way to a profession I love. Only God could make something like that happen. It all fell together too well to be mere chance.
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