2020 Hindsight

I can truly say that now since 2020 is behind us.

To borrow a line from Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times and it was the . . . ". He ends it with the worst of times. But honestly I can't even say that. There have been periods of time where people have worried and fretted over way more serious issues.

But I'll reflect on something more than this past year now that I have a complete understanding. I wrote a much better post here, but the following was a gratitude post I made on Facebook about my dear friend and mentor who took a chance.

Four years ago the Lord made a deep chess move in my life (remember that post last month). I needed to work fulltime to help support our family. I had been substitute teaching and discovered I loved being in the classroom, and thus my journey began to find employment and become a student again to get my teaching certificate. I KNEW I wanted to teach upper elementary and those are the only jobs I applied for.

One job interview found me in Grantsville at Willow Elementary sitting in a room with a lot of people, one being Stephanie Maughan Nicholls. I didn't get that 6th grade job but several weeks later I got a call from the principal offering me a job . . . to teach 2nd grade. I actually told her I needed to think about it. Lower elementary was never my favorite. A couple of days later I took the job because I knew I needed to start somewhere. Little did I know that day that the Lord was moving me into a position where HE KNEW I would thrive and succeed. I later learned that when the 2nd grade position came available, instead of interviewing, my principal asked Stephanie, the 2nd grade team lead, who she would like.

I absolutely love my job. The Lord knew exactly what I needed, where I needed to be, and when I needed to be there. He knew that my love of reading would be more beneficial in a 2nd grade classroom than an upper grade. He knew I would work with the best team of teachers anywhere. He knew one of my team teachers would also be my classmate as we traversed the school path together for our credentials. Three years later I honestly could not ask for a better place to be.

I will be forever grateful to Stephanie for taking a chance with an unknown somebody who really didn't know a thing about teaching 8-year-olds at the time. She took me under her wing with her mentoring and believed that I could truly do this gig.

I am also eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father who plays way deeper chess than I do and sees the grander picture in my life.