Thursday Encouragement #125

Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He and He alone is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

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Today’s Thursday Encouragement comes from:

Psalm 69:15 (ESV)

Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are many, many, many teachers out there struggling right now. I guarantee with every fiber of my being that many feel like they are swept up in a flood, swallowed by the deep, and enclosed in a deep pit. It’s called virtual teaching and it is AWFUL.

Tuesday I had three meetings. Yesterday I had seven. Today I have three more. Every day I’ve had to deal with students, teachers, admin, parents, emails, Google Classroom, and a wide assortment of new programs that I would never have even known existed if it weren’t for this pandemic. I’m constantly being asked to troubleshoot things I’m barely understanding myself. There is this sense that I’m supposed to be “ON” 24/7, and if I can’t I’m a bad teacher who can’t communicate properly.

Teachers are overloaded and overwhelmed.

I am overloaded and overwhelmed.

I’ve had a headache for four weeks now and it is 100% due to eye strain caused by staring at my computer for hours and hours at a time. I miss meals now. My family is literally in my house with me and I miss so much time with them to make sure my students, teachers, admin, and parents are happy. There is NOTHING fun about virtual teaching. It’s odd and frustrating and goes completely against my nature. But I am trying with everything I have to make a bad situation not so bad, and so are all other teachers on this planet right now.

When I was thinking about this post for today, I got to thinking about how fortunate I am. You see, I believe with my whole heart in God. When I get to feeling like I’m being overflooded by my job, and I want to hide from the hundreds of people asking me to do more and more and more than I can actually give in a day, I go to God. He gives me peace. He helps me re-balance. He keeps me from being flooded, swallowed up, or closed over.

But the teachers out there who don’t believe in God, what do they do? How do they get the kind of peace I feel because of my relationship with God? The answer is, “I don’t know what they do,” and this answer makes me sad.

Dear readers, God put it on my heart to ask for prayer today. Not for myself, although I’d greatly take a prayer or two if you are willing, but for those teachers who don’t have a relationship with Jesus. Pray that in this time of uncertainty and stress these teachers’ hearts are opened to the Truth of Jesus and His amazing, perfect, grace-filled love and peace. We all need Him now more than ever before. Pray today for a teacher. I thank you wholeheartedly.

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?

Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:

Trisha @ Joy of Reading

Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home

Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective

Becca @ The Becca Files

Gina @ Stories by Gina

Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes

Andi @ Radiant Light

Leslie @ Words of Hope

Claudia @ Claudia Moser