Doing it yourself… and why I’ve been gone

Dear Faithful Blog Readers,

I’m sorry I’ve been gone. I’m sorry I’ve kind of disappeared as far as this blog has gone… I do have a reason, but it isn’t an excuse: I have been burnt out and overwhelmed.

The burning out is all job related… I’m over any newness that may have stuck around and now I’m just praying every day that God get me through that day and give me a shard of joy as I do it. It shouldn’t surprise me that I don’t particularly like it… I never wanted to be an early childhood teacher and here I am, teaching preschool. I’m just thankful to get through each day as it comes.

The overwhelmed part is everything combined: what I WANT to do and what I HAVE to do. The want to do stuff might not even be what you’re thinking- it comes down to cleaning my room and making time to make Halloween costumes… and hanging out with people. The have to do stuff is stuff like work and oil changes and hanging out with grandparents. You know… those things you just can’t get away from. It all just boils down to me being overwhelmed with almost everything.

But in the end, people and hanging out with my friends comes first and will continue to come first. I will most likely no longer be blogging every day… the people in my life are too important to put a blog before them. So you’ll know when I blog, but it won’t happen every day. Just when I have a little piece of wisdom or a funny story.

Like this…

Today we were making kites. Not real kites, just a little paper and straw kite to stand for our letter of the week (K) and to help the kids practice their cutting and gluing and following directions skills. I had a few who cut their kites into two… I say kites plural because I gave them each two because they messed their first ones up so badly. They turned out messy and I’m sure the parents will have a raised eyebrow when they find these “kites” in their child’s take home folder.

So many things with preschoolers would be SO much easier if I just did them myself. Like lightyears easier. Simple things like ripping a piece of paper towel for the kids to dry their hands after washing them or more complicated things like cutting out a shape. It’s hard sometimes to let the kids do it. It takes longer, it gets messy, it can frustrate the poop out of you.

But so many times that’s exactly what I have to do. I have to hold myself back and let the kids do it, whether or not it looks good, goes quickly, or makes me crazy.

It’s what God’s attitude is towards us. Of course it would be SO much easier for him to just swoop in and do whatever it is that needs to be done in our lives so it looks good and makes more sense. Of course it’s gonna take longer and be more messy. But he lets us do it on our own so we’ll learn.

There are no lessons you learn from sitting back and letting someone else do the work. My kids would never learn how to cut if I didn’t give them a pair of scissors and say “go for it.” They would never learn how to be independent if I always put their shoes on, ripped off a paper towel, or colored for them. It would be a heck of a lot easier on me, but o the lessons they wouldn’t learn!

Please don’t misunderstand the message of this blog… Of course God comes in and helps from time to time, just like I come in and help my kids from time to time. He is always there, watching over our shoulder, but he also lets us do things ourselves, knowing it’ll result in a lesson somewhere down the road and we’ll be better because of it.

It’s really kinda cool. God’s pretty cool himself.