Last week I was listening to a radio program interviewing someone who, from my view point, has found much success in their life. The person mentioned they were an atheist.
I think I actually lost my faith for a few hours. Suddenly it just seemed so logical that if some people, like Bill Gates for example, can find such success and not believe in God, then certainly God didn't give them their success, so there must not be a God.
I started playing out scenarios - how would my family take the news? Could I even tell them? What if I caused them to lose their faith? My argument against God seemed so cut and dry but yet I felt I shouldn't ruin things for anyone else. If faith worked for them, and they hadn't seen the obviousness as I now had, I wasn't going to tell them - they needed to come to it on their own.
I wondered what I would do on Sundays now, and after death - then what? I guess death would be like turning off a TV. Nothing scary about that.
Later that evening I received a message from a special friend who I hadn't heard from in a number of months. Throughout the last several decades God has used this particular friend in a variety of ways and at numerous times to give me special messages - reassurance, direction, etc. Receiving a message that night was no coincidence. A few simple words warmed my heart in such a way that I knew it was only the touch of God.
The next day at work, one of my favorite students came in to tell me he had finished all his coursework and was graduating early. I have often thought over the two and a half years I have worked with this young man, that he was the reason I had been brought to this campus.
Many times we go through struggles and we know God has a plan but we can't see it. Several years ago there was a big shakeup where I was working. Scandal caused the big managers to resign. The interim manager and I had just never been best buds and he arranged a demotion for me. I found myself doing work far below my college degree with people who maybe graduated high school. Some of them were nice and I absolutely appreciated the hard work they did every day. But some of them were back-stabbers and drama queens. Furthermore, I was not of the same culture as them and, yes folks, even white people can be discriminated against. I suffered through six months in that position and took the first job out of there. That led me to where I am now. Where I have been happily employed for 2 1/2 years. Where I began working with the aforementioned favorite student young man. I've often thought that he was the reason I went through all that - it was God's design to get our paths to cross so I could help him. I've often thought that even though I have since passed my teaching certification I haven't gotten hired as a teacher because I still needed to be here - near enough to support that student.
So the day after I briefly lost my faith, it was no small coincidence that that young man came to tell me he was ready to move on. When he was in 9th grade and not a strong reader I took him into the school library and read the English novels aloud to him. When he was in 10th grade, and it wasn't even my job anymore to work with him, he sought me out after school for math tutoring - I didn't refuse. I encouraged him to enroll at the self-paced / accelerated graduation campus and together we completed his application. And he just blew through his last two years of high school in five months! The boy who said he wasn't coming back after 9th grade is now a high school graduate. And I had a hand in that!! I'm not one to toot my own horn, and obviously he did all the work, but I really think without my support and encouragement he would not have stuck it out. He is the first high school graduate in his family. My heart was warmed again as only God's touch can.
That same day I found out that my teaching certificate is not as limited as I was told it was. I had been told I needed to stack some additional certifications to be able to teach anything other than 7th grade math. Turns out that's not the case - I can teach any middle school math. I felt like that was confirmation that indeed God had been holding me here to see that student through. Now he's moved on and I can too. Like God was saying, "Well done good and faithful servant - now here is your reward, you are released to the next phase I have planned for you."
I still have to be careful because that little atheist voice has not stopped trying to whisper in my ear. But I'm getting good at turning the other cheek.
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