God Answers Prayer

As many of you know, my church did a 21 day fast at the beginning of the year. I ended up trying it out, since I had never really fasted before. It ended up being an interesting experience. It also ended up being difficult since I have low blood sugar and low iron. I was sick most of the fast and had to give it up about half way through. I did continue to pray, and I hope that my fellow fasters (Is that a word?) felt my support.

As stupid as it sounds, I think the biggest benefit for me was truly focusing on God for those 21 days. I made myself pray. I made myself read the Bible each day. I made myself put forth an effort. This isn't saying that I don't already do these things. I just feel that I focused more strongly.

I can honestly say that I am a different person since doing the fast. I find that I'm not as worried about life in general. I don't stress about things I can't control. I'm not worried about decisions that need to be made. I simply pray and wait for an answer or weigh my options in a more open minded way. Maybe it's because I rely more on God and less on myself? I don't know, but I do feel a difference.

Last week, one of my biggest prayers got answered. For those of you who don't know, I made a big career change this year. I'm a teacher, who is used to teaching in public school. Well, I got a little aggravated and tired of standardized testing, bad behavior being ignored, and lack of freedom in what you teach, so I decided to apply to a brand new, private day care that was hiring for a kindergarten position. It was going to be a smaller class size, a different approach to lesson planning, and I was still going to be paid salary.

I got the position, but they ended up not having enough kids to open the kindergarten class. That's how I ended up becoming a preschool teacher. To make matters worse, the salary that I was told I would get, turned into an hourly position - and I was only going to get part-time work. Needless to say, I was very upset and concerned.

I've been praying hard for God to help me with this situation. I can't live on part-time. I had to defer my student loans, and I really struggle to keep my other bills paid. However, there aren't many teaching jobs open in the middle of a school year. I decided to stick it out and hope for the best.

Well, God finally answered my prayer. I was given full-time hours this week. It's no guarantee that I will keep full-time, but at least it's a start. It's still not the job I wanted, but it's enough to live on. For that, I am grateful!

I am also very happy at this job. At first, I really hated preschool. I'm not used to kids this young at all, and I really had no idea what I was doing. Now that I have learned the ropes a bit, I realize how good I am at working with the little guys. I love it, and I enjoy getting up and going to work in the morning. I am beginning to wonder if God sent this job to me to help me fall in love with teaching again? Because that's exactly what it's doing!