This writing life

Ok, I'm hooked. Didn't think blogging was for me, but it is! There's something about trying to craft words on a page to suit a theme or idea, mull over every line, then hit the "publish" button. I like having time to think over what I am trying to say. I like having something useful or inspiring to communicate. 

I remember my dad making me get up and either answer questions from a group about our unique life overseas or give a little personal testimony. As a teenager, that was the absolute last thing I wanted to do! My dad knew I had something to give, something deeper than the shaky, surface nerves that typically found me crumbled up into a pile of emotions. 

When I began formally teaching English as a second language, I had very little idea what I was doing. I'd just turned nineteen. I'd moved with my family to the middle of nowhere, no friends besides my own siblings; found myself wading in flip flops through rat infested floods after a typhoon hit the region. One of my first evening beginner-level English classes was full of adults older than me. I knew I didn't have a good plan, but would wing it, like I had for the morning class, and hope for the best. Instead, I was attacked verbally from a very disgruntled woman who was rattling off in a language I did not know yet. I felt a great deal of heat rise from my neck up, thinking, this is not good; I have no control. In a matter of minutes, I found myself fleeing to the front office for help and reinforcements.

Just prior to making my escape though, one young man had made a point of showing his cooperation with the new American teacher. I'm not sure why he was so forthright, so disinterested in the abrupt sway and confusion from the whole class. He looked directly at me, showing he could follow my lead, even with the language barrier and the crazy lady hijacking the class. He saw through my feeble attempts at being brave, at doing something way over my head. Not sure why he believed in me. To this day, I wish I knew who he was, and why he cared.  

Every day I get to show my three kids, biological and adopted, that I believe in each of them. I get to show that they are worth something to me, their mom. Raising kids is its own category of hard, but as we all know, we can get wrecked and battered bad in childhood. Every day I get to choose to see past the outer layer, like my dad did me, and deliberately look directly into my kid's faces, showing I believe they can learn, can grow, can do more than they think they can. 

Who is in your life? Who can you impact for their good, their growth?