On Faith- Trust in the Unimaginable

This is an excerpt from a poem I wrote 3 years ago. At the time, I was transitioning out of a year of substitute teaching, after leaving the first school I ever taught at, where I worked for 5 years. I didn’t know what the future had in store for me, but I had faith that I would end up where I needed to be. I trusted that God would provide me with a new teaching job, but I never, not once, anticipated the direction he was going to take me in. Here’s the thing we often say about faith- it’s trusting in what we cannot see. It’s believing that God is at work and having confidence that things will turn out okay, even though we cannot see what is coming or how things are lining up in our favor. But even when we cannot see how something is going to happen, we usually have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. 

Three years ago, I had faith that I would get another teaching job. I just wasn’t sure how it would transpire, or where or when. My “leap of faith” at the time was really not that big of a jump, because I was believing for what I hadn’t yet seen, but not for what I couldn’t yet fathom. I had no idea what God had in store for me. I couldn’t see it, because I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t imagine it because I didn’t even know it was a possibility. The job that I ended up in, I didn’t even apply for. I applied for a position at a charter high school where I would work with small groups of students in English who were below grade level. When the talent person reached out to me, she felt that I was overqualified for that job and offered me a position as an Education Specialist (synonymous for Special Education teacher). Prior to this, I only really associated Special Education with teaching in a self-contained class, or pulling out students to work in a resource room. The position I was offered was completely different- something I did not see coming.

I ended up taking the position and really enjoyed every aspect of the job. I was able to co-teach in the general education English class for a few periods, teach my own classes of Academic Support and Reading Intervention, and manage a caseload of students with IEPs. If I could have literally created the perfect job for me, this would have been it. I was still able to teach and lead some of my own classes but co-teaching gave me the flexibility to not have to be “on” all day. It also allowed me to work more individually with students which is hard when you’re in charge of 30+ students. Managing students with IEPs allowed me to flex my advocacy skills to make sure they were getting the support they needed to be successful in their classes. One of my favorite things was teaching Reading Intervention and watching students grow in their reading and spelling abilities. After two years in this position, I decided to go back to school and get a special education teaching credential. I just completed that credential and wrapped up my third year in the teaching position that I didn’t even know existed when I was applying for jobs! 

But my time there has come to an end and I am back in the in between, letting go of where I’ve been, so that I can move into what’s ahead of me. What’s next? I can only say for certain that it will be something in special education. That is the direction I am going in now, but 3 years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar. So I won’t even try to guess where I’ll be in another 3 years. I’ll just keep trusting the process. I’ll keep holding onto faith- because I couldn’t have gotten myself here on my own. My tendency is to stick with what’s comfortable and familiar. To resist change and to try to control every outcome in my life. But God’s got a better track record than me. He hasn’t failed me yet and he is the epitome of go big or go home. So I am just going to trust and have faith that something big is coming. And while my human tendency is to try and guess what that is, I’m learning that nothing in my finite mind can figure out the workings of an infinite one. 

As my working definition of faith changes and develops and deepens, I am starting to understand that faith is about so much more than trusting in what we cannot see. It’s bigger than trusting in who we cannot see. Faith is about trusting in what we cannot anticipate or even imagine. It’s trusting that if God’s ways are higher than ours, then there are some viewpoints that we just cannot reach, until he is ready to reveal them to us. Faith is about existing in the in between, but we cannot do that without patience, peace and perseverance. Patience is going to allow you to wait on God because he’s not always going to come through right away. But he is always going to come through, in his timing. And his timing is right on time. Peace is going to keep you still through the process. It’s going to keep you from getting in God’s way and it’s going to allow you to experience joy even in the waiting. Perseverance is going to get you to your blessing. It’s going to keep you from turning back right before you get to that next level. When nothing is happening and the waiting gets hard, when nothing makes sense and the odds seem stacked against you, perseverance is going to help you take that one last step to arrive where God is taking you. That place you couldn’t dream up in your wildest dreams, but that God has already designed and orchestrated just for you. There’s only one way you get there, and that’s by FAITH.