Tag: Gratitude

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Conversation Piece

At this time a year ago, I was finishing up my final year at Charleston Southern University. Because I had accepted my new gig at Southern Wesleyan in March, I had a month to say goodbye to everyone who had made my time at CSU so special. This included not only colleagues but students too. Before I left, I sent the students who had meant something to me an email asking for a conversation piece. It said this:

Before I hoof it up I-26 to the upstate (it’s happening this week!), I wanted to ask you for something to remember you by: a particular poem, song, novel, video game, graphic novel, tv show, movie, food type product—you get the idea—that you think I should check out but that I either don’t know exists or haven’t made time for. Some of you have already given me elaborate playlists, and now particular songs from Hamilton and Fall Out Boy’s Mania are inextricably connected with you forever and ever Amen. This is a good thing! I wouldn’t have listened to either of them without the two of you, tbh, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

You each will be in my prayers, and I will do my dead-level best to keep up with you. Commiserating over the too-good-to-pass-up deliciousness of Market Pantry Fiddle Faddle will be an excuse to say hey. (Note: I don’t know if Target makes good fiddle faddle. That’s just a made-up example, but you get the kind-of point, right?)

This week, I made my way back through some of the emails and listened to the song below that had been recommended from one of my fave non-English major students. It gave me an excuse to pray for the student, reach out and say hello, and give thanks that I get to do what I do for a living, where an ongoing personal connection can be made over books and writing and education and discipleship. I’m blessed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0345Ls4IJf4
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#3Gratitudes

Every class this semester, I’ve handed my students a daily worksheet with a space to write down three gratitudes.

Then, we’ve actually started each class by closing our eyes and focusing on the gratitudes as a way to attune our hearts to God’s goodness.

It’s been personally beneficial and has offered a segue into prayer before every class. More than that, it’s helped focus me for the fifty or seventy-five minutes I have with my students.

At times this semester, I wonder whether it’s benefiting my students.

This morning, I received this email from a student in my comp class.

I…ran across this [article link] on the internet. I thought it was so cool since we do gratitudes every morning in your class which has become a habit for me personally. Now one of the most successful women in the world is doing daily gratitudes like we do here at SWU in Central, SC…
So Cool!

Yes, it is. Needless to say, it made my day before my day even began.

God is incredibly good and certainly worthy of me giving thanks.

 

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Teaching Children

III John 4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”

When Catherine was first born, people asked me if I felt any different now that I was a father. I could honestly say no and that this was because I had always felt like a dad; I just didn’t realize it.

This feeling came primarily from teaching.

My students were never kids, and I made sure never to call them that. They were of age, capable of enlisting in the military or voting, when they came into my classroom. But I still cared for them like I would my children, a collection of sons and daughters even if they were (as was sometimes the case) older than me.

I’m now at the time of the month in my prayer calendar where I send a prayer to former students once a day. Over the past few weeks, I’ve contacted Zack Cook, Logan Crowder, Shayla Hoff, Hugh Pressley, Erica McCrea, Sarrah Strickland, and Chris Reyes to name a few…

Some are caught in purgatory, still looking for that post-college landing spot. Some are teachers or professionals and have made the transition successfully. Some of them are living out their faith in ways that I long to emulate. Some are struggling with their relationship to God.

No matter, I count it one of the privileges of my life that I get to reach out to them once a month, let them know I’m praying for them, and share God’s love with them.

And when I hear that they are walking in the truth? Incredible joy…

 

 

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Thankful In Little

Luke 19:26 “He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’”

Yesterday, I received two emails that should have made me elated. They did make me happy, but I don’t think I held onto that happiness for very long.

First, a student I taught in the spring got a writing gig with his current employer. He was pumped about the opportunity, and since we had spent so much time working on his writing for the freshman writing course he was part of, he wanted to let me know the good news.

Second, my uncle—my dad’s oldest brother—responded to an email I sent him early in the week. We last saw each other about this time a year ago, and he commented on how much that particular vacation—where he had, among other things, gotten to see my dad, Elisha, and me—had meant to him.

These are phenomenal blessings: written records of gratitude and appreciation that show God working in the lives of the people I have been in prayer for.

And yet. And yet. Continue reading “Thankful In Little”