January 13th Entry: Testing Week

This is what I would consider a backlogged entry. I wrote it a few days ago when I was still teaching. I would have loved to publish it on time, but alas, I could not. I'll make sure to catch you all up to date in the next entry;  a lot has happened. Love you guys! Here goes....

From Wednesday 13 January…

This week is testing week—in more than one way. My students, at present, are, in a literal sense, testing. We have reached the end of the semester, and their state exams are here. Though I started this test morning feeling queasy about messing up some minute detail, in general, I like testing week. It reminds me of James Irwin, it symbolizes the end of this era for Isaiah and I, and I do not have to teach during it; I only read instructions to my kiddos, ones they dare not contradict. Otherwise, they'd have to test again...which nobody wants.

But though the testing at school is, in a literal sense, going well, there is a different kind of testing going on. I can't disclose all the details, but I will speak of a few items on the testing docket for Calli Jade English. I am, as of late, in pretty constant neck and back pain, which the chiropractor visits help a bit but not always. My neck is fairly locked up, and, as some of you know, intense physical pain makes behaving nicely difficult. Pair this with the fact that it's the end of the school semester with students who were already "done" when I first got here. Last week was rough, and I'm still carrying the stress of it in my shoulders and spirit.

But alas, there is more testing still. Japan is more on the horizon than it has ever been, but I am unsure of the path we're taking to get there. There are more moving parts now, and I feel utterly out of orbit. Despite all of the unknowing (leaving North Davidson, Isaiah trying to find a job, us being unsure of the "how" when it comes to Japan, the not knowing if I'll ever get better physically...), there was one thing that seemed certain...at least until yesterday. Yesterday, when I was in the most pain I perhaps have ever been in, we learned that perhaps even this presumably "certain" thing won't happen. I felt like the rug had ripped out from under me, and it felt awful.

I thought that perhaps God was trying to teach me I'm not in control. But I feel He's already been teaching me that, and I really believe I've been a submissive, humble learner. So is this just life?--things I won't understand this side of glory; is it the closing of a door which Isaiah and I thought previously open? Is this God's teaching me yet again even though I am a tired and broken pupil? I do not know. All I can do is WAIT.

I will be still and know that He is God even when my body rails against me. I will be still and know that He is God even when I do not understand. I will be still and know that He is God when it seems that nothing of the woman I once knew will be left.

But the one thing I will not try to be still about, though I tire, is pleading for Christ's discernment in knowing when the Spirit is humbling, changing, and breaking me, and when, in contrast, satan is trying to steal my identity in Jesus and rob me of the gifts that the world doesn't comprehend. It's hard for me to understand when God is teaching and when satan is pummeling me. The only option is to keep looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith. He's the only one who knows what's going on right now.