But I'm barely breathing.
Yep. Going classic The Script here. And I also should've been doing play analysis, and grades, and output checking, yadda yadda. I know. I know. I'm not in my most productive mode. But things have been toppling up so fast lately, and like the back pain I have to get a massage for at least every other week, I need to do a more in-depth processing of every "lemon" of emotions I have, or this would totally swallow me up and paralyze me to complete inaction.
As the whole world knows, it was World Teachers' Day yesterday, October 5th. There was a simple program in UMAK HSU yesterday morning, where the teachers were (rather instantaneously) told to prepare a dancing/singing presentation. (And yes, I "danced", if you even call that dancing.) There were also a lot of little things that happened throughout the program--food, raffles, the PTA president subtly campaigning for her government official husband, students coming to meet me about my subject requirements, pictures, and some more pictures. The highlight of the program for me, though, was the awarding of the Outstanding HSU Teachers. This recognition is based on the student evaluation the school opens every semester. Your students basically rate your teaching performance throughout the term.
And I was not one of those awarded.
Don't get me wrong. I am not demanding that I should have been rated by my students to be outstanding (4.0+ out of a 5-point scale rating). I am also not thinking that they were wrong in their perspective. Neither am I being bitter nor do I question that these awarded teachers were outstanding in their performance. I actually heartily agree.
And also for the record, even at the beginning of the semester, I knew this would not be my best term in teaching. I went to this new workplace slashing and kicking and protesting. I accepted the workload with a heavy, conflicted heart. Going to school every day has been a struggle. To survive the day is an enormous, almost impossible task. I couldn't think ahead for the entire week, or I would break down and be taken over by paralyzing panic. I felt like I didn't know half of what I had to teach my students--probably even more than half. I felt physically, emotionally, mentally drained every single day. I always felt out of breath, literally and figuratively. I felt inadequate. Lacking. Ill-prepared. Even I would not rate myself outstanding.
I guess what made me somewhat sad is the fact that the students have actually seen what I've been feeling, too. At one point in my teaching in FEU, I also have definitely gone through major roller coaster of emotions, and somehow I had to still keep going. Waking up for work had been a struggle there at that time, too. But I think what makes it sadder this time is that students were actually able to see that I was not okay. That I was not enough. That I failed miserably in this semester. And it reflected in their evaluation.
I told myself at the very onset that I would not be afraid of the students' evaluation results. A lot of them were very problematic, character-lacking and ill-mannered students. For sure, they would not give me an objective assessment. But guess what. I'm very much affected still. Perception, no matter where it came from, is apparently still perception. And when people find something against me, I still get affected. Apparently and sadly so.
And of course, my beginning-to-sulk self opened up Facebook, and voila, memories of Teachers Day appreciation posts last year, students' surprise last year, and other teachers' posts yesterday about their students' surprises (and their certificates for being outstanding teachers!) flooded my feed. It was like Facebook was rubbing it in. "You failed this semester, Bekah."
Refusal to self-pity
And so I broke down. Last night and this morning. All the feelings of being a major failure, which now of course deliberately extends to not just failure as a teacher but in so many other aspects as well, came rushing back. Failure as a teacher. As a counselor. As a testimony. As a colleague. As a friend. As a church member. As a daughter. It all comes rushing back, fiery and feisty.
But the Lord, still consistently being ever so gracious and loving, rebuked me already even before these things transpired. My assigned reading yesterday brought me to Psalm 89, the beauty of which I have discovered only yesterday, to my shame. And this is the part that almost literally leaped out of the pages of my Bible to hit the message home, hard and strong, to me:
Blessed are the people who know the festal shout,
who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face,
who exult in your name all the day
and in your righteousness are exalted.
(Psalm 89:15-16)
The imagery is just so strong to be set aside. The psalmist did not just say, blessed are those who know the cheer. Or yell. He said the people who know the festal shout. This is the victory we have come to know by experience. This is the cry of those who conquer, of those who are overcoming and will overcome, sin. And this is the cry we have been taught, ever since coming to know personally the saving grace of Jesus. We are these people who know the festal shout.
And we don't just know the festal shout. We also bask in the light of God's face. The Lord, the Creator of the entire universe, of creatures great and small--we bask in the light of this Wonderful, Almighty, Awesome God whom we have been so undeservedly privileged to call as our Father. We bask in the light of His steadfast love and faithfulness. We walk in the light of His face. In the light of His glory. In the light of His grace.
And yet here I am, sulking, breaking down, crying, over an evaluation result I have not yet even seen personally. Over the fact that my college best friend seems to be getting all the life portions I've ever wanted to take for myself--field missions, US trips, Biblical Counseling graduate studies. Over my insecurities, self-disdain for all my flaws and shortcomings, over the tasks God has so providentially placed upon my hands.
How shallow. How very, very shallow. How these feelings of hurt and exhaustion pale in comparison to the greatness of what the Lord has portioned out for me--the festal shout, the light of His face. How the heart, disappointingly, so easily, easily forgets the vast measure of God's grace poured upon me day after day, moment by moment. God's faithfulness, truly, is made magnified in the light of my own inconsistencies and crookedness.
Let my heart be able to sing once more of your steadfast love, O Lord.
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