Why So Negative?

What a week! (sigh) Have you ever finished a week and just taken a deep, exhausted, pleased-that-you-made-it, breath? I have...today.

Being a teacher is no easy task, let alone in the last days of school. Monday I was ready to count up my sick days to see if I had 17 that I could take to close out the school year. I have tried and tried and TRIED, but I can't think of one good thing that happened at school on Monday. (I know it was 6 days ago, but I have been trying since Monday night!) My day was spent correcting behavior, being told "Miss C., I think you hate me!" by 3 students, chasing late work, dealing with other teachers that had to repremand my students, and talking with a parent.

I left school feeling totally defeated and not looking forward to Tuesday. My thoughts were flooded with, "this was only Monday! What if they are worse tomorrow? What if we don't get everything done? I am going to shut K and C up as soon as they walk in tomorrow. I know that there will be more late work. Why can't they get stuff done? The 6th grade teachers are going to talk bad about Miss C.'s students next year."

Negativity. It is such a crappy thing. I was totally ready for the week to get worse and to seriously take a personal day to get away from it.

Tuesday was better at school (as was the rest of the week). Thank you Jesus!!!! However, I had some personal stuff to deal with. I need to go to the doctor to get some things figured out. So I immediately got the negative thoughts going again. "I must have some serious physical problem. He's just going to tell me to lose weight...again. What if there is something majorly wrong with me and ...." Immediate negative thoughts.

So, why so negative? Well, I will tell you. Satan knows exactly where to attack me: 1. my job 2. my self-image. And I actually listened. I was out of tune with Jesus this week. I can honestly say that I didn't open my Bible once, NOT ONCE, until today. I didn't really even pray this week, I mean really converse with God, until today. I didn't step back from me until today.

Guess what? I am learning. I am learning that I NEED Jesus every day. I need to be addicted to HIM, so much that it pains me to go without. He reminded me of this today as I was reading. I can't make it through life without him, so why try.

Precious Jesus, I want to NEED you all the time. I want to be in pain without you. I want you to be first in my day, every day. Thank you for reminding me of this today. Thank you for the time to just hang out with you and talk and experience the love and grace you give. Thank you.