He is in control

God keeps reminding me that He is the one in control and I'm just along for the ride. Which is actually a great reminder and makes life much more care-free. He knows what He's doing and wants the best for me, so I don't have to worry about any of it.

The Lord keeps changing things from the way that I think they will go. It's not even that I want them to go a certain way, or have an expectation of it, but it's just the way I pictured it. Or He shows me what my true purpose of being somewhere is when I thought it was something else. This happened a lot this summer. Sometimes things end up way better than I had pictured, and other times it's just really different and I have to change the way I think about it. It happened this summer with what I thought was going to be easy and what I thought was going to be a challenge. God flip flopped them and it threw me off for a little bit. But of course, in the end, I learned so much and everything turned out the way it was supposed to.

This has happened a couple times in Chicago. What it is going to be like, who I've become friends with, where I'm living...lots of things I thought would look like one thing, and then the Lord has just said, "nope, it's going to look like this instead." Well, I got to my school on Thursday morning and this happened yet again.

The school I'm student teaching at has been through a lot this summer. They just got a new principal, they've remodeled some stuff with the school, teachers have changed classrooms, and there seems to be a bit of relational drama in the school as a whole carried over from last year. So with everything being crazy, I'm pretty sure they completely forgot I was coming to student teach. I got there and found out that no one asked the teacher I was placed with if she wanted a student teacher. And she didn't. So the assistant principal walked over to a bunch of first grade teachers and asked if any of them wanted a student teacher. One said she did, so I'm now with a new teacher and in first grade instead of third.

I know that this is totally the Lord. I really really like my teacher a lot and the team of teachers in first grade are completely awesome, work really well together and are drama-free. So I'm so thankful for that. First graders are great. I really love them. They're so cute and really fun to teach. So I am excited.

But at the same time, this is not what I wanted, or why I thought I was coming to student teach in Chicago. I wanted to be in a 4th or 5th grade classroom because I wanted the experience with older students. I've already had 1st graders in one of my placements. One of the reasons I wanted to come to Chicago was so that I could get some experience dealing with rough situations that come up in an urban setting. I wanted to see how teachers dealt with behavior issues and I was hoping it would kind of give me more of a "backbone" when it comes to those situations. I think I want to teach special education in an urban high school, but the oldest grade I can teach for this semester is 5th, so that's why I wanted 4th or 5th. To get experience with behavior issues.

But obviously, that's not what God had in mind. So I'm not sure what He's doing, but I trust Him. I'll have so much experience with younger kids, it makes me wonder if that is where He's calling me instead. I have no idea. I feel like this has been happening with my thoughts about ministry as well. I keep saying that I hope to lead Young Life one day, but I honestly have no experience with High Schoolers. All the leadership positions the Lord has called me into has been leading other college students. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what the Lord has in store.

I'm excited about this semester though. I'm still not really sure why I'm here, but I'm enjoying it and definitely experiencing new things. I'm excited to meet my students and see what the first day of school looks like in a first grade classroom. Students show up on Tuesday!