God's Grace: Downtown Toronto, a Buick Envision, and an Airline Company

I’ve never seen my dad drive his Buick Envision, or any Buick – or any vehicular designed to transport people form point A to point B - so fast. He’s a strict follower of the posted speed limit like a subordinate follows a general’s orders.

Every summer, while I am off of school and it’s in the thick of another Major League Baseball season, my dad and I try our hardest to schedule 1-3 stadiums to visit to chip away at the list. Since 2011, our mission has been to go to all 30 baseball club’s home field to watch a game. At this moment, the moment my dad tested the Buick’s limits, we had just finished our 28^th stadium – Rogers Centre in Toronto.

When my dad booked the flights for this year’s ball park visit, my school year in Arizona had already begun, and my dad’s conference for financial advisors was in three weeks. His conferences are always in Toronto, so it seemed fitting to go to the Toronto stadium with him already there waiting for me to show up. The goal was for my dad to drive from Detroit, Michigan, where his office is located, to Toronto. Once in Toronto, my dad would pick me up from the airport upon my flight’s arrival.

From my perspective, I had to fly out of Arizona on Friday at noon. To make it worth the trek, I took Friday off, but the only flight that didn’t take 12 hours of precious time due to stops along the way was a one-stop that departed Arizona at the exact same time my Friday workdays typically ended. With the time difference included, my flight would get in around 7:15pm. Since my dad was going to drive back to the Detroit area on the same day I would have to fly back due to work the next morning, my dad coordinated the trip so that I would fly out of Detroit to Phoenix rather than flying out of Toronto. My dad and I would get more quality time, and I wouldn’t have to worry about the border and being interrogated at the airport if we drove the four hours back from Toronto to the Detroit airport instead.

Problem solved.

As long as we hit each checkpoint – leaving downtown Toronto, arriving to the border between Canada and Michigan, arriving to the airport – precisely when we hoped, it would be a perfect plan that would prove the flight out of Michigan would be the superior choice to flying out of Toronto’s airport.

To get to the good stuff, here’s quick rundown of what happened leading up to the arrival at the airport:

1. My flight back to Arizona was scheduled to depart at 8pm, doors were closing at 7:24pm, which meant I had to be at the airport and through security no later than 6:24pm.
2. My gate, any time I fly to Arizona from Michigan or from Michigan to Arizona is always the last gate at the end of the entire building, no matter what wing, time of year, or who I am booking with. Delta, American Airlines, Alaskan, please do something about this. ALWAYS.
3. Frontier was the airline my flight back to Arizona was booked with, and they don’t always have the best customer service and leniency when it comes to mistakes on the customer’s part.
4. I can’t continue to number four without mentioning that none of this information is anyone’s fault: We left downtown Toronto at 2:26pm (not 2:30pm), arrived at the border between Canada and Detroit at a little past 6:00pm (not 5:20pm), and left the border by 7:10pm – yes, you probably did the math right there, and yes, we were stuck in line for over an hour.
5. We were also not the reason we were stuck in line at the boarder for over an hour.

Now that you’re caught up, let me start with this: twice, my dad wanted to pray for God’s help. The first time, I was too busy wondering if I would have to take an emergency day off of work and be stuck at the airport for God knows how long to be in the mood to pray – bad on me. But, I was given a mulligan when my dad said again, but this time didn’t ask, “Let’s pray.”

While he was praying, I kept my eyes open looking outside plotting what I would do to at the airport to convince all of the staff – let alone Frontier, ugh – that I needed to get on that flight. Even if I managed to convince the bag drop counter, the security officers manning the checkpoint, and the entire plane to hold on for 25 minutes while I come barreling through TSA pre-check and running 5 miles to the end of the building so I could board the plane as the doors are closing, I would then have to do the walk of shame down the middle of 14 rows as everyone stared at me because their flight was now delayed up to a half hour.

I struck out again. Even with a mulligan, I still couldn’t get myself to place my worry in God’s hands. My dad had far more faith than I did in that moment.

0-2.

The first strike out, I didn’t even acknowledge he wanted to pray. The second time, I don’t even remember what my dad prayed because I was too focused on worrying about what I couldn’t control and being humiliated. Some Christian I am, right? He could’ve been praying about small rodents hosting a cheese festival and I would have still said “Amen” at the end of the prayer. I was paying no attention to my dad’s plea to God because I allowed the voice of fear take over.

In that moment, while the Buick was pushing 90, I didn’t believe there was a way a prayer would make it easier to board. Shame on me, but I felt there were too many variables to overcome since we arrived to the airport five minutes after the doors closed. Remember: I still needed dropped my bag off at the front desk to go under the plane.

Once we got through the border, and obviously out of sight of the police officers, the pedal was to the metal again and the SUV lurched forward into high gear the only way a Buick Envision knows how. Dad was determined to get there on time like Frontier was determined to tell us we weren’t. The estimated time of arrival went from 7:25pm to 7:23pm. The Envision could go 8,000,000 miles per hour and we would still be late because, as magical as the Buick looked, it couldn’t turn back the clock when we still needed to drive 16 miles to arrive negative 46 minutes to the airport.

Even being TSA precheck and the son of a wealthy financial advisor wouldn’t help us go back in time. It’s possible a DMC DeLorean could do it, but we didn’t have one on hand. Maybe the gate not being a half-marathon away would help, but I needed the favor of God to reign down on me to make this whole ordeal work out – even though I wasn’t present during prayer time. I needed my dad’s prayer and my half-hearted attempt to pray along with him to reach the receptionist of Heaven and convince the angel to pass the prayer on to God so he could grant us our request for Frontier – yes, Frontier – to help me board the flight.

As we’re pulling up to the departure lane, the Buick comes to a halt like a radiant white horse, right after my dad confidently tells me he is going to put the stallion in park and walk in with me to sort the matter out, like the knight in shining armor he is. I debated telling him I’ve got this, but if my attitude to the prayer  my dad prayed is any indicator, I needed all the reinforcements I could get when confronting Frontier.

I may have once booked a flight for the week prior before this (Colorado, 2013), but this was me being late for a return flight that was already scheduled to arrive at 9pm the evening before a long workday. I didn’t know how desperate I needed to look and act to get on a plane 20 minutes after the gate doors closed.

When dad and I ran up to the counter, all kiosks were turned off and the green screens showing the Frontier logo glowing behind the counters were also turned off. One of the attendants made eye contact with us and we chose her to be our Esther that would save us from damnation.

“We’re closed now. It’s too late to board your flight, and the gates closed,” she said, emotionless. It looked like she was being guided by the bad day she had. Either that, or so many people have experienced the same situation I was in, she memorized the lines and was ready to say them before we got to her.

I was the passenger this time.

Have you ever been too desperate that you do the opposite of fight and kindly throw money at the issue and hope it fixes everything because you just WANT TO GET HOME? Again, I was that passenger because I was not ready to argue with someone who hated her job.

Dad and I huddled up like we were going to call a Hail Mary Audible on 7^th down and 28 – right before the ref tells us there is no such thing as 7^th down – and I just said, with this party pooper Frontier employee plastered on the forefront of my mind, “Let’s just find another flight that flies out of here later tonight and call this Frontier flight a loss. And let’s book it through United.”

As we wrapped up our huddle, the voice of a friendly giant spoke up from behind the counter. It was a different associate, and he said, “Let me contact the gate and see if you have time to make it.” He took his iPhone out just like the woman could have done and when he got off the line, he notified us that they are still boarding, I would need to pay the $100 late fee for my bag, and that I had 15 minutes to get through security checkpoint and run to my gate.

I made it through security in 5 minutes, and as I rounded the corner, gate D15 was 30 feet in front of me. That’s right, I guess not all gates from Michigan to Arizona are 48 miles from the security checkpoint. As I approached the gate that was quite literally across from security, the line was 25 people long, so not only was on time, I didn’t need to run through the doors.

Do I think the man behind the counter was an angel interjecting on my behalf? I don’t know. Maybe he is a real human, and similar to me when my heart softens towards someone, the Holy Spirit filled his heart and helped him assist me when he could have agreed with the woman and said I was too late. They were already closed so he had no incentive to help me out. On top of that, my dad and I were already leaning towards accepting my fate and booking a later flight. I would not have argued with the woman if they held their ground. Yet, the second associate took action even though he had nothing to do with my tardiness. He helped me even if it did nothing to benefit him, give him a raise, or promote him to higher position or better airline.

This man had the final say whether I could board or not, and he made an exception. I am sure Frontier doesn’t do that for everyone, and that woman was about to prove it. Therefore, I can neither confirm nor deny that he was an angel – but I can confirm that God had something to do with my ability to get on that flight.

When a crazy situation happens like this one, I usually like to figure out some Biblical anecdote or verse in a Psalm that connects to me getting on a flight 20 minutes after the doors closed.

Nothing came to mind.

Even as I sit here wrapping this story up almost a month later, I still don’t have a comparison that relates to a Bible verse or story.

Maybe not every wild story involving the border, a Buick Envision reaching hyper speed, and Sunday night flight needs a Scripture forced into it. Stories, like this one, are reminders that God’s love for us is not just found in anecdotes of old, but our day and age too. God is present, even in the moments you think his intervention has no place for. I will admit, I didn’t think God would help me get on the flight and I would simply have to suck it up and deal with the consequences of arriving late. I can honestly say it would not have changed my level of trust in God if I didn’t make that flight on time.

These unscripted stories are one of the many reasons I believe in God. Not because he gets me onto flights I am 45 minutes late for, but because I desperately need him when I have no faith; when I am scared and believe the only available solution is what I think is the worst one.

When I keep my eyes open during a heartfelt prayer from my dad because my lack of faith causes me to worry and panic over something I can’t control, it’s helpful to have a God that doesn’t get offended by my numbness to an opportunity that God invites me into.

If God depended on me to trust him fully in every scenario that makes its way, uninvited, into my life, I wouldn’t see evidence of him very much because my faith would consistently be lacking. If you were to ask me to define grace, this is it. I don’t deserve his divine intervention because I don’t have the kind of faith needed to earn his favor. I want to have more faith, and me being allowed on a plane I do not deserve to be on helps me want more faith. However, his grace becomes sufficient for me when I don’t have the faith I need or want.

And there you have it, a Bible verse connected to an adventure involving a magical Buick, a friendly Frontier associate, and a nearby gate at the airport:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9

Even when my faith is weak and I am drowning in worry, doubt, and logical explanation, God’s grace is enough to help me through in times of need.

What a great and glorious gift it is to receive grace when we need it most.

 

 

 

Strategizing Against the Revolutionary War Between Man and Sin

Strategizing against sin became a whole lot easier when Jesus died on the cross.

Like all childhood friends, a bond is formed by common hobbies, and with Jake Forsythe, the common ground was flowing with hobbies, like ants on an anthill during harvest season.

Collecting die-cast cars, watching movies on VHS, playing Call of Duty on the Xbox, going on bike rides through the subdivision, reading Calvin and Hobbes comics, and playing Air Soft in our backyards to name several.

One of Jake’s defining character traits is his unwavering devotion to something he puts his mind to. So, when it came to one-on-one airsoft battles with our pistols, he treated it like he was James Bond’s sidekick – that, or he was the next Bond, Jake Bond. He was so good at airsoft, my clearest memory is of him hiding behind the pool shed while I am getting my rear end kicked by 10 pellets at a time because he was playing the proper way while I was a sitting duck looking for him. When I would finally feel confident enough that I caught him off guard behind the shed, to my surprise, he was gone. Five pellet bruises later, he was behind the trees shooting where he used to be and hitting me while I was, once again, a sitting duck.

Eventually, our game of airsoft would end because I was so frustrated that I could never find him. Ten years later, I attended a private university while he went into the Marines – shocker.

While I will forever respect Jake for bringing Black Hawk Down to the countryside backyard of my home, the strategy he employed was not only for self-preservation, but also to outwit, outplay, and outlast me like it was a game of Survivor. What Jake did differently than me was treat each airsoft pellet like it was his last shot, and to preserve his own life, even if the harm he did to me was hit me with a dozen bee stings. The additional benefit of his strategy was it promised him a one-sided massacre that made me out to be the laughingstock of the operation. A target bag filled with corn from five feet away would have been a more difficult target to hit.

Approximately 250 years ago, during the Revolutionary War, while I would guess the tactic wasn’t born, it proved to be decisive in helping the Patriots overcome extreme disadvantages in skill, organization, and experience to send the British Loyalists back to Boston where they camped for the night to regroup from the ambush.

What ambush? Well, the first battle of the Revolutionary War, known as The Battle of Lexington and Concord, the British Loyalists’ goal was not to wipe out the Continental Army, but to scare them into a quick surrender of their weapons. Just hand over your weapons and no blood would be shed. Of course, it also meant complete control for King George and Great Britain. By the time the King George troops came over to complete their mission, the Continental Army had enough time to strategize against them. While the British were confident they would convince the Patriots to surrender their arms without firing a single shot, they were horribly mistaken.

What I love about the first battle is that its victory over King George’s British Loyalists led to the Declaration of Independence being written and signed, which is why we call 2026 the 250 year anniversary of America. However, the war was far from over, but it did supply the underdog Patriot army plenty of confidence as well as bulked up their resume that would eventually convince the French to aid them in their desire to become a free nation.

Just like any historic event that caused a seismic shift in the rest of our lives on planet Earth, any victory that led to major future changes of this magnitude has its challenges. And with challenges comes plenty of sacrifice.

And also creativity.

Think about it, eventually after getting shot by enough plastic pellets, you would think I would eventually hide behind a fence post and come up with a new gameplan on how to defeat Jake, who was probably slathering himself with mud and tree leaves as camouflage while I was stumbling around looking for a place of refuge.

Even though I would love to say I did put my creativity to use by switching things up on my adversary, using the outcome of the Revolutionary War as motivation, I did not. But it would have come in handy if I hoped to turn the tables on him and pull out a surprising victory that would shock even myself.

In 1775, when the British army successfully stormed through Lexington after the “Shot Heard Round The World” was fired, the moved towards the only bridge that led to Concord, the North Bridge. In the town of Concord was where a lot of ammunition and various weapons were stored, but instead of handing them over to the British without a fight, they hid them.

Hide-and-seek was not the only thing that made this battle an interesting one, though. When the British set fire to the small – and I mean small – amount of weapons they did find, a group of Patriots saw smoke billowing below Punkatasset Hill, where they were stationed and laying in wait for the right opportunity to strike the Loyalists. Well, this plume of smoke was the right opportunity because they mistook it for the village of Concord being set ablaze. As the rushed down the hill, it pushed the British army back where they first arrived.

Remember when I mentioned only one way in to Concord? That means there was one way out, so when the British were surprised by this brave attack from atop Punkatasset Hill, they needed to get back to Boston to regroup. To do that, they were forced to go back a predictable route, which leads to the entire point of this story.

Shoot-and-Scoot.

During my skirmishes with Jake, it didn’t just annoy me to the point of possibly ending my friendship with him because of his very particular set of skills at embarrassing me in my own backyard, it probably annoyed the British too, because they were also victims of this strategy. Of course, they didn’t have a friendship on the line, but their own lives, which I am eternally grateful that Jake wasn’t shooting me with a musket – I would have been long gone if my life were on the line.

Historians say what made this march back to Boston particularly difficult for those fighting on the king’s side is not only did they have no where else to go, but the land they marched through was not the layout they were used to fighting in. First, it was an Atlantic Ocean from home and they were used to open fields, not complex terrain full of buildings, boulders, and homes to hide in and behind. However, the Continental Army was on home field, so they knew the land unlike the British Loyalists, even if they didn’t know how to fire their musket the way the British army did.

This distinction paid dividends for the Patriots, because this is how the Shoot-and-Scoot strategy came into play. Shoot, hide behind a cluster of trees or under the window of a two-story apartment, and it leaves the British soldiers looking around like sitting ducks, if not dead from the shot. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It did for me, because that’s exactly how Jake made me feel: like a sitting duck. It’s like trying to catch a bucket of water to prevent yourself from getting wet, or trying to catch a ghost and contain it.

Imagine standing in the middle of a dirt road, dehydrated, disappointed by defeat, and stumbling drunk from the heat and exhaustion, and now add a handful of Patriots shooting and hiding behind all of the physical obstacles that only the opponent knew about. Any difficult day prior to this would be a cake walk.

When I read this part of the text to my fifth graders, it makes it sound so easy for the Patriots. Let’s not forget: the Patriots were farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, merchants, tailors, and other occupations that didn’t require munitions before they joined the war. None of these positions required them to handle a gun. If they had a gun, it was for hunting unarmed animals for food, not to kill other humans who could fire back.

Also worth noting: the Patriots were just British people who fled the homeland to have freedom from King George III, so they were firing against their own neighbors, British vs. British. This is why it was the British Patriots (or Continental Army) vs. the British Loyalists. However, historians also refer to the Patriot army as the American army because they occupied American land at the time.

The bottom line is the British army was supposed to be infinitely better and more prepared than the Patriots. They made a living training to be a soldier. It should have been like an 8^th grade middle school basketball team playing against the Golden State Warriors NBA professional basketball team. The level of disparity is astronomical! Why would you put your life on the line knowing full well there’s a 99% chance you’ll be obliterated, even if you are at home and the Loyalists are considered “the away team.”

Yet, damage was done and the British left Lexington and Concord feeling extremely disappointed and shocked that the Continental Army successfully pulled off a stunt like that. It was a miracle! Shoot-and-Scoot caused the British to flee back to Boston with little to show for their mission. It was a failure, and there was no respawning in this situation like the video games allow.

Often, I feel the same about sin. I get down on myself and feel like there’s no way out. No strategy that will cause the sin to flee – or me to flee the sin. A friend of mine once corrected me and said, “You always have enough time to refuse to submit to temptation.” Unfortunately, it can be easy to fall into the victim mentality and think sin is too strong for you to overcome.

In my career, when I feel tempted to mistreat someone at work because I feel mistreated, it can be easy to think I have already lost the battle when I feel temptation to react poorly.

Can you imagine if the 80 or so militiamen (Patriots) decided to give up before the trained British soldiers came? Can you imagine if they said, “They are too experienced and I’m just a carpenter! I make IKEA furniture and they kill for a living! I couldn’t overcome them! Let’s just surrender.”

Instead, they strategized. They weren’t even promised victory for trying! They couldn’t tell the future, so their attempts to gain freedom from the British control could have easily fallen short from the start. The point is, they had good reason to quit; we don’t. In fact, the Bible tells us so:

“No temptation has overtaken except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NIV)

This verse is why we Shoot-And-Scoot against sin. Yes, Satan is strong. Yes, Satan has been doing this since the beginning of time – he is well-versed in tempting us away from God. But, if we believe Scripture wholeheartedly, then we do have a way out. Victory is moments away. Unfortunately, too often we don’t strategize with God through our sin so it no longer has control over us. We withdraw from the fight before the last part of verse 13! I am not suggesting it is not hard, but I am promising God has a solution to your struggle. 

In fact, he is the solution! We shouldn’t wait until after we lose the battle to pick ourselves back up – let’s flip the script and strategize while the enemy is tempting!

The fight is not over. The Patriots knew that; and when they had difficulty believing it, along came strong leaders like George Washington who helped them believe it. But, belief must take us to a place of strategizing in alignment with that belief. You might also call strategizing taking action, and in this case, the two are synonymous.

The Patriots didn’t just sit in customs houses and taverns discussing ways to boycott, get back at King George, and refuse to pay his taxes. They sure did discuss, but they also acted on it and eventually, they had to take further action once war was declared. You must take action. Sin will continue crouching at your door until you do something drastic – until you strategize in a creative way that turns the tables in favor of victory for you.

Jake didn’t just talk about his love for the military, their tactics, and materiel, he lived it out in our Airsoft battles, and I can bet you every dollar I have he won every 1-v-1 match we ever had. I didn’t win one of them. Thank the good Lord we didn’t keep track of who won and who lost, but I don’t think we needed to because it always ended the same. I was lucky to get one shot off, typically. Why? Simple. He played the part by strategizing and taking action.

When we are faced with temptation, distress, discouragement, or lured into making poor choices, we have time to strategize a way out and glorify God in the process. We are given the gift of self-control, even in the face of danger. We may not have control over the surrounding forces that put pressure on us, but we can determine how prepared we are to face that pressure. To prepare, strategizing is a prerequisite to action and even works together. The Patriots strategizing and acting on that strategy to defeat the British in the Battle of Lexington and Concord is a perfect example of this.

The result was an independent America was born, which makes this part of history monumental, if you  ask me. The same result can be said of us overcoming temptation with God’s help. Just like the Continental Army’s ultimate victory over the King George III led to freedom, overcoming temptation can lead to freedom if we’re willing to strategize with God’s help.

The beautiful difference between the Revolutionary War and our fight against sin is that Jesus already fought and defeated sin – he already enlisted in the war against sin that we were supposed to fight and died so we could be set free from its clutches. When we fall into temptation, we are behaving like Jesus never did that. See, we can strategize with Jesus because he helped us win before we were even conceived into the world. This is why God “will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” No temptation is capable of forcing you into sin because God already sent Jesus to take that burden.

That is much better news that going up against Jake in Airsoft, I can tell you that. At least you have time to find freedom. Me, during those Airsoft days, never.

That is why I signed my own Treaty of Paris* with Jake in June 2002.

*For those of you who are not American History nerds, the Treaty of Paris is the official agreement signed in 1783 by the US and Great Britain to end the Revolutionary War and allowed the Thirteen Colonies to be a free, sovereign groups of independent states that would form the United States of America.

My Dreams vs. Reality

 They say dreams are small pieces of your subconscious finding the spotlight where your conscious currently resides.

I’m not sure who they are and I’m not sure if anyone’s ever said that because I’ve never heard that before.

 

…but, c’mon, it sounds scientific and exactly what dreams do.

If you rewind the tape, you would notice I wasn’t your average college kid who couldn’t wait until those four dreadful years were over and I could live out the ambitions I went into college debt for. To me, graduation was the equivalent of being thrown into a world of unpredictable twists and turns, not an opportunity to turn your future aspirations into now. After all, not everyone gets to be what they want after the first try, and that scared me sleepless.

A majority of college graduates have to go through the painful years of discovering themselves before they wind up getting the career they went to college for – if their mind doesn’t change by the time the actual opportunity rolls around. So, their 20s are filled with either one, constantly competing against hundreds, if not thousands, of other applicants who are likely better qualified due to experience or bias. Two, they give up on what gets them giddy and resort to less pleasant experiences coming out of college in hopes it is merely a short-term rung of the ladder to the career of your choice. Or three, they step into something entirely different than what they were anticipating for the long-term and find out quickly enough that they are inspired to call an audible on their initial dreams.

For someone who already questioned whether they wanted to spend their money learning how to teach children, entering the field trying to prove myself to employers added to the pressure to be a booming success out of the gate. I was option one, but I wasn’t thrilled about it for many other reasons other than having to compete with other ambitious educators. Needless to say, I put more on my plate mentally than I should have – most of the pressure was unnecessary considering where I am at now.

I allowed this mindset to eat at me and cause me to randomly burst into tears throughout the final two years before my student teaching semester began. I was stricken by immense anxiety and stunned with indescribable doubt because I didn’t know what the future would have in store for me. So many times I prayed and asked God for a crystal ball to ease my mind. Instead of welcoming the mystery and anticipating the thrill that comes with the rollercoaster the real-world would put me on, I was apprehensive and shell-shocked that the rest of my life was within reach. You could argue I was allowing worry and anxiety to derail me from putting my future in God’s hands.

My two remaining years of college were when the subconscious in my mind was making its way to the surface like a buoy refusing to go underwater. I didn’t want to feel this terrible about the rest of my life after my college education concluded, but like stuffing a million marbles behind a flimsy closet door, the subconscious fear and crippling despair were bursting out of the forefront of my mind – so much for the that part of my mind preventing me from living my life peacefully and with eager anticipation to start the next chapter of my life.

 

After college in Michigan, I moved down to Tempe, Arizona with a college friend. The year my best friend and I moved south, I had a tremendously difficult rookie year teaching 6^th grade (not just because it was my first). Put it this way: Most of my conversations with God sounded like, “I told you this would happen,” as if I planned against God’s wishes to have emotional and mental meltdowns in college just to have my feelings validated a year later. No matter how I write about this season of my life, it sounds bizarre to consider my logic at the time, or lack thereof. Turns out, the nightmare year I experienced was necessary for the rest of my teaching career to take shape. I needed to experience the pain in the forest to see the clearing on the other side.

 

Without retelling the following decade and a half (known as the clearing after the forest of pain and suffering) after college in too much detail, the following school years teaching 5^th grade in Gilbert, Arizona were not only filled with some incredibly blessed professional years, but also full of memories where God proved to me that he can use anyone he chooses to do his will, even if it’s not always easy or rewarding.

 

However, the panic and unending barrage of discouragement I felt in my remaining two years of college never disappeared; they just slowly crawled back into the darkness of my subconscious where dreams and nightmares are created when my head hits the pillow and my eyes drift off to sleep.

 

For example, I once dreamt I was back in Michigan. I was scheduled to substitute for a Junior High class, but the dream started with me walking into the school with my pajamas on. From the jump, I was unprepared to sub. As is typical in my teaching dreams, I couldn’t find the room I was subbing for, so when I finally did find it, I was already 15 minutes late. It was for 8^th grade science, and the kids started laughing the moment they laid their judgmental eyes on me. I looked around the room and realized I was in a classroom surrounded by glass windows twice the size of the regular rooms, and surrounding the classroom were the hallways of the school like a moat surrounding Alcatraz. When I finally meandered to the teacher desk, there were no sub plans to be seen. Only the teacher’s science textbook teacher’s manual was visible, and it was flipped open to a random chapter. As I scanned the room, it was obvious I was flustered and unsure of how to help the kids for that hour, let alone the entire 7 hours. This embarrassment, though not my fault, became fuel for the fire as their laughter and apathy became louder. The worst part was feeling like I was to blame for this mistake.

 

It was no dream. It was a nightmare. Unprepared, unworthy, underachieving, and a waste of time: my worst fear in a realistic dream. That is what my subconscious told me in those two years before graduation, and that is what every dream about teaching has been about. This example is just one of many.

 

The many that tell me...

 

I’m not good enough.

They’ll never accept me.

I’m too stupid.

They’ll laugh at me.

I’ll humiliate myself.

I will ruin my one shot at this.

I’ll never make them proud.

I might as well give up while I’m ahead.

I’m a waste of time

No one should have taken a chance on me

I’m a failure and that’s all I’ll ever be.

 

But, for every nightmare I occasionally have about a school experience that isn’t even real, I am reminded 25 times a day that God’s grace is often revealed when reality doesn’t match the fictional horror stories we make up in our minds.

 

God’s grace, when we choose faith in the midst of fear, proves it is sufficient for you and me because God often reminds us that those lies will remain lies as long as we walk with God to follow through on his plan for us.

 

It sounds like a mouthful, so let me paint you a clearer picture:

- Never have I ever subbed for a classroom where there were no lesson plans.

- Never have I ever had a classroom full of students laugh at my expense because I did something embarrassing.

- Never have I ever been humiliated because I wasn’t prepared to teach.

- Never have I ever gotten lost in a school because I couldn’t find where I was teaching for the day.

- Never have I ever been fired or in trouble because I wasn’t good enough to work at a school

Yet all of my teaching dreams have one or more of these elements in them, which proves to me what God does through you is powerful enough to transcend the lies we believe about ourselves.

Which makes these nightmares, as realistic as they are at times, as silly as the unrealistic dreams where I turn into a marshmallow in the middle of a blizzard. Those nightmares don’t align with who I really am and what I’m really about.

For me, what my junior and senior year of college brought to the surface was the lie I believed that I won’t amount to anything because I won’t be good enough and no one will recognize me as worthy of their time, thus rendering me useless and unserviceable.

That I will be a failure.

And, if God shows me through my career that those are boldface lies, the dreams will remind me that, at any moment, you could lose it all because all of the success you have had is smoke-and-mirrors for what is true: you are not a true teacher because you are a failure.

Again, a lie, just like those nightmares.

Starting to sound like a never-ending abyss of bad news, isn’t it? Well, this is where the good news comes in like that Gandalf scene in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Indeed, Gimli, the sun is rising: Rising with good news.

Growing up, my dad called Satan a lion without teeth. He can roar all he wants to scare the courage out of you, but he can’t eat you unless you let him have his teeth. These dreams? They don’t have teeth when I am steeped in the truth of who God says I am. The anxiety I felt about the future in those remaining two years of college also didn’t have teeth.

The more I grounded myself in God’s Truth and let His beautiful words fill my brain, the less the lies had a hold on me. It’s like when you introduce a pan of burnt cookies to Dawn dish soap: the longer the lies are marinating with God’s truth, the weaker of a hold those lies have on you. When the lies are covered in Truth, you don’t even need to scrape the burnt cookie crumbs off because gravity will do the job.

When you’re head is foggy and filled with doubt like mine was – when your nightmares are reality and feel so much like the Truth, it’s hard to see God’s intervention through it – don’t give up. Remind yourself and even memorize these Scriptures, because they are the Truth and no nightmare you’re living can change them to fiction:

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” – Matthew 6:26

“Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful…for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:8-9

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to In God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:6-7

In my remaining years of college before graduation, these were my main Bible verses that played leading roles in my life at the time, and they helped me graduate higher than a 3.6 GPA, move down to Arizona from Michigan, and start my teaching career teaching elementary age kids. Over 15 years later, I am still teaching in Arizona because of God’s goodness, faithfulness, and his peace guiding me through every up and down I experience. These verses were the swords I used to fight against the lion without teeth. The Word of the Lord gave me the prosperity I needed, and his peace and provision reminded me of my worth in Him.

Praise God for his unfailing love and plan for me.