I spent three years driving 68 miles each way to that office in my chorus room. As a high school choral director, I had a lot going on that I loved...
I love teenagers, even when they're obnoxious. They are such malleable bombs of potential, waiting for the right detonator to set them off on an explosion of possibility. Even the ones who play video games all the time - I love having the opportunity to turn kids on to singing and making music together, the connections I made with them, the immense growth that happens during high school...it's awesome.
But there were things that made my high school a bad fit for me and my family. That's not what this blog is about, but that's what made this life change happen. I say, "my family," and not, "my wife and me," because in September, we're having a little girl, and that changes everything.
So, spurred largely by not wanting to work 68 miles from my little girl, I went through a painstaking process that ultimately ended in me not signing a contract and cleaning out my office. Hence the bare walls.
I got home from that last day at MHS, and happened to take a look into what will be Baby Girl's nursery - another set of bare walls.
One set reminded me of the bittersweet experience of teaching in a place that ultimately wasn't right. The relief of being able to leave it behind. The emptiness of leaving my students behind, and the disappointment many of them expressed when I told them I was going. And lingering over both of those was the uncertainty that the things I'd taken from those walls and shelves would find another home in the fall. See, I left MHS without having any other job lined up, with with relatively little prospect of finding one close to home. Those things are still packed up in a box upstairs as I type. Bare walls of an ending.
The other set of bare walls was full of possibilities - the bare walls of a new beginning. The excitement my wife and I are feeling at bringing new life into the world. The fulfillment of God's faithfulness to our months of waiting. And the uncertainty is in these bare walls, too - uncertain that she'll grow up healthy and happy, that I'll know what to do to be a good dad. The last part, ultimately, is the inspiration for this blog.
With uncertainty still clouding the coming months, I may well be stepping into uncharted land, and becoming a stay-at-home dad, something I never planned to do, and would never have chosen. But, just like my career, the city I live in, and the woman I married, I didn't have any of those things in mind, and God knew that His plan was infinitely better than mine. So, whatever the fall has in store, my goal right now is to trust that God had it in mind all along, and that it'll be right. So here we go...
