I follow Priscilla Shire’s blog. It is pretty great. Every month she posts a new devotional in the section she calls the jewelry box. This month she posted about two letters. O.K. You should really go read it, but essentially she writes on how powerful those words can be. Not in a sarcastic, or dismissive tone but used in a way that says “I heard you; I trust that you heard me. I will not add any more strife to this conversation.” I have noticed how powerful those words can be  because I have spent the school year working under a principal who uses them well.

People come to him with concerns. Sometimes they are valid, sometimes they aren’t. When you work with as many teachers as are at my school you simply can’t make everyone happy. Teachers are notorious for having gone into the profession because they get to be completely in charge of their own space. They like to be the ones telling what to do…..not the other way around. Making decisions based on what one person is telling you is probably not the best route. So he listens and says okay. Then you have to let him decide what is going to be the best way to handle the situation. Sometimes, he has a really good reason for not changing anything. Sometimes, things get changed.

Lately, with the school situation. I have heard God telling me OK. In the exact same way Mr. Sims says it. OK, I have heard you. OK, I am taking what you say into consideration. OK, I need you to let me handle it now.

This year I also learned the power of OK in my classroom. When a student won’t budge, when they are being belligerent. When they are making decisions that I cannot allow in my room, and are refusing to see reason. The staff was instructed to not get into the argument, to simply say “OK” let the chips fall where they may, and let the consequences say the rest. The scary thing about this is I don’t win. I want the student to KNOW I am right, to hear what I have to say, to get what I think is an adequate punishment. But I can talk forever and still not get that from a student. Sometimes when you have had your say, and things aren’t immediately flipping to your side you need to trust that it will all shake out in the end and say OK.

I have been in situations before where I hear the Lord say to me OK. When I am refusing to do what He asks, when I know the better way but am not following it. When I have been railing against His plan I hear “okay” and no that God is saddened by the decisions that separate myself from Him, but that He is going to allow me to suffer the consequences, and be there when I finally decide to do it His way and ask Him to pick up the pieces.

But the OK that has been pressing on my heart most is the one that God has asked me for. The one I finally gave Him yesterday. Where I can say truly, OK. You want me at Roswell? OK. You want me to drive far and serve a suburban population? OK. And not OK…but I don’t like it. OK….but I have better ideas…but this is stupid…..but….but….but. Just OK.

I learned from someone that when a bride first steps into the church, where most of the people are looking is not where the show is. I mean, of course you want to look at her, the dress, the hair, the make up, the dress, the shoes, the back of the dress. But, there is time for all of that later.

The real show is up front. The best place to look when the bride walks into the church is at the groom. At his face. I have been to weddings where you could tell the exact second the groom could see the bride walking in. My breath has been caught in my throat or I have audibly sighed at his reaction to his love. I have been to weddings where Christian had to elbow me because the bride was half way down the aisle and the grooms face had not changed and it was becoming increasingly obvious I was looking in the wrong place as everyone else was slowly turning with the bridal march. That one was a bummer.

We were at a wedding this past weekend for Christian’s cousin Jessica. It was really beautiful. We sat in the back so I could make a quick get away with the Peanut if she decided she had had enough of this sitting quietly having people pay attention to someone who is not her business. Somehow between making sure the baby wasn’t screaming her face off and being in the back I forgot my usual behavior at weddings and turned to face the back of the church when I was instructed to by the minister.

The bride was gorgeous and looking wholly like a bride and completely like herself in the best possible way. I definitely caught the moment where she saw her groom for the first time. It was pretty great. But apparently I missed the big show. Christian poked me and whispered, did you see that? And when I looked at him he was looking at the groom who was still trying to recover from the moment his bride walked in the door. And Christian was wiping tears out of his eyes. “You missed a good one.” Yes. I did, and I also got a good one.

I have been hearing it, again.I have been hearing the voice again compelling me to write. Not just in my blog or on twitter (which I am finding way more fun than I thought it would be) but continuing to work on a book that  I have been working on, on and off for about four years.I thought it was just because I was being lazy, procrastinating. Hey it isn’t like I haven’t been guilty of it before.

Jill, ever the therapist, has asked me if I was afraid of success or failure….definitely failure. What if I write a whole book and no one is interested? What is they think it is stupid? What if no one will publish it?

Then one of my friends sent me an email about her recent trip to India. She had a quotation from bell hooks. I should probably look it up but that whole laziness thing. It was basically about how if we are going to honestly write about our life, our situation, then we must face the darkest parts of our selves. We must own the things that we thought and said that were wrong. Admit that we did them. Only then can we move past it all.

It is why we need mommy blogs, well why people read them anyway. I don’t think it is an accident that the woman the NY times crowned Queen of the Mommy Bloggers is the same woman who checked herself into a psych ward because she realized her PPD was going to kill her. She wrote through it. People identified. It isn’t that being a mom isn’t life changing and incredible and completely amazing. But sometimes your kid strips off her diaper on the way all the way through the house and you have to wash her new dress and put on a clean dress. Then you have to go through the house and find all the turds she dropped on her way to find you while she screams her head off when we you try to keep her contained as you pick up her poop and try not to vomit. Those stories need to be shared so that when it happens to someone else, she can know she isn’t alone. And she will laugh about it later.

I want to write that book for first year teachers. The book I wish I had my first year. The one that admits that every thing you said you would never do in teacher school……you will do those things. Punish with homework, lose your temper, give up one day, give up on a kid even though you do truly believe that every student can and has the right to learn. I said things to students that I am not proud of. I had whole days that were unequivocal failures. My victories were smaller most days than I had ever dreamed. But I pushed through it, and after four years I am starting to become the teacher I was so sure I was when all I did all day was talk educational theory.

Now all I have to do is take these next two weeks and actually write that business. No problem………if I do it. Which I haven’t even before I had kids……Wish me luck.