In All Circumstances

It's long, it's wordy, but I felt it was worth sharing...

I've been really thankful recently, and sharing that thanks with God in my morning prayers.  School has been going well, I've had the world's best pregnancy, I'm going to have a baby soon, Jason has been amazing, I get to share my life with my family... it's all good here!

Each week, our Sunday School teacher Brian sends out a "Hump Day Encourager," an email linking Scripture with an application to our daily lives.  This week, he shared 1 Thessalonians 5:18:

"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

He emphasized that the verse says to give thanks in all circumstances, not necessarily for all circumstances.  It's hard to thank God for life's difficulties, but we are called to give God thanks while dealing with life's difficulties.  I read this email Tuesday night, and thought about it a bit Wednesday morning.  I feel like I'm a pretty grateful person, so I felt I could put a big ol' check mark by this verse and call it accomplished.

I get to work between 6:15 and 6:30.  This gives me about 45 minutes before students show up to prepare for the day, read some Scripture, log in some grades to the computer, and finalize my powerpoint notes for the day.  I live by these powerpoints.  90% of my organization (and trust me, there's a LOT of organization in my life!) is because I'm actually scatter-brained.  If I need to remind students of something, I put it on the powerpoint.  Directions for what they're doing in lab that day?  It's on the powerpoint.  Plus, that's how I teach... they follow along and fill in their notes while listening to me elaborate on my powerpoints and show them pictures and diagrams that emphasize the point.

At 7:00 on Wednesday, I went to copy my powerpoints for the day from my desktop computer onto my thumbdrive so I could display it on my projector.  I do this every morning.  For some reason, instead of copying the file, I DELETED THE ENTIRE FOLDER!  As in, 5 days' worth of powerpoint notes.  As in the file folder containing the notes I was about to teach 15 minutes from the time of deleting.  Panic attack!  You computer-savvy people out there are thinking, "Uh, why didn't you just retrieve it from the recycling bin?"  Well, my school system has decided that they'll allow teachers to completely depend on their computers, but have no real administrative control over them.  We can't do anything, from changing our desktop backgrounds to having access to our recycling bins.

Long story short, I called the Media Center and they said they may be able to retrieve the lost files by the end of the day.  I frantically began recreating and retyping a powerpoint on what I thought I had planned on teaching that day and told my students to sit quietly and study for their quiz that was later that morning.  By 7:45, we were up and running... but my whole day was thrown off.

I told everyone I could find about my horrible situation -- my students, fellow teachers, my assistant principal, my mom, Jason, you name it.  At around 4:00, they were able to retrieve the rest of my files, so I was good to go for the rest of the week.  Did I exclaim for joy?  You betcha.  Did I thank God?  No, I don't believe I did...

That night in bed it hit me.  Only 24 hours earlier, I had brushed off the message of giving thanks in every circumstance.  God had tested me, and I had failed drastically.  At no time during the day had I thanked God.  In fact, I had a pretty foul attitude the whole day.  I wanted people to pity me and my horrible situation.

And it wasn't even that bad of a situation. 

So I had deleted some files.  Wow, really?  That was the worst thing in my day?  That same day I learned that a student of mine with bad attendance is dealing with stuff so bad at home (obviously I can't share here) that I couldn't even fathom having to deal with.  I didn't have to worry about where my next meal was going to come from.  No loved one of mine was dealing with a sickness.  We weren't facing eviction or foreclosure because my hours at work had been cut.  I had not been fired, had an argument with a close friend, or even stubbed a toe.  I had deleted some files that were found again only hours later.

We are called to thank God in all circumstances.  While we may not like the circumstance or understand the circumstance, there is a point for it, and we should give thanks for it.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." -- Romans 8:28

God had a purpose for that situation that day -- to humble me and to help me realize just how much I need His forgiveness and mercy.  I don't have a "check mark" beside gratefulness.  I need the Holy Spirit in me every day to combat my pride and make me realize how much I need Him.  The most beautiful thing is, He's there for me.

And if that isn't something to give thanks for, I don't know what is.