It Is What It Is

As any teacher will tell you, spring doesn’t only bring blossoms and sunshine, it also brings standardized testing.  I am sure you have heard of it, right?  You know… those tests everyone likes to argue about.   The ones that are supposed to tell you how good a teacher is.  Oops!  I mean, how well a student is learning.  You know… that big book of multiple choice questions that take you a week to answer because you only work on them for 40 minutes or so at a time.  Yep!  Those are the ones.

Now, ask any teacher who has ever worked with me and they will tell you that these tests never really seemed to bother me.  While administrators, aides and other classroom teachers might be stressing out about last minute cram sessions and lists of topics not yet covered this year, I am proud of the fact that I was always able to take things in stride.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t concerned with the standardized testing coming up, it was simply that I wasn’t worried about it.  It was what it was.  If I had done my job day in and day out then the tests would take care of themselves.   If I had presented information in an interesting way that made knowledge meaningful, and therefore memorable; if I had taught my students to think and not simply repeat back to me, then there was really nothing left to do in the final days before testing.  Review?  Of course.  Continue presenting new information?  Of course.  But teaching and panicking are not the same thing and at some point you have to decide what is in and out of your control.   Teaching for knowledge was my job.  Using that knowledge when asked was my students’ job.  I have never understood how teachers, many way better at their jobs than I, needed to worry so much about a test.  Test day was what it was.  Nothing I did in the final hours was going to make or break it.

So, why do I bring such a crazy subject up today?  Well, because today in many ways is once again test day for me.  Today is the day that all my days of “doing my job” comes to a head and we see what fruits will come from it.  And it is what it is.  I can honestly say that over the past month or so I have done what I can with my mere human hands to get this event put together and pulled off.  I have spent countless hours contacting vendors, organizing gift bags, door prizes, emails and more.  And it is what it is.  All that is left is in God’s wondrous hands.  As I put it earlier today in an email, huge success or small victory - this night is all His.  And He will make it what He deems it to be.  I have done my job.  I have run the good race, now I shall wait upon the Lord.  Only He knows how this event will turn out, and only He knows how that turn out will inevitably be used to His glory.  So, for now, I shall leave it at that.  It is what it is.  And it is all in His hands.

Thank you to all of you who have played even the slightest part in putting this night together.   Some have prayed, some have shopped, some have helped me to organize my vendors.  Some have even watched my girls so I could simply have a conversation without little people interrupting.  No matter what your part – it has all been necessary to get to this point.  Some might think it is silly to make a single fund-raiser out to be such a big deal, but in my world it is a big deal.  I’ve done large crowd adoption fund-raisers before – a walk-a-thon, benefit concerts, silent auction, etc.  – but those were all done with the active support of a church fellowship I had been a part of for years.  This event is different.  I have put it together at a church we have been members of only a few months, with people who have only known me that long, and with the aid of some people who I will not actually meet in person until the event occurs tonight.  In my opinion, that is a big deal.  And it just goes to show, our God is a BIG God!

So once again I will say it – It is what it is.  And may it all be to the glory of His wonderful grace.

God Bless!