A Little Slice of Heaven

School started yesterday for the teachers. We had our morning meeting, and then worked in our classrooms for the rest of the day. The meeting went much better than I had expected. I had been a little nervous about my emotional stability, but I enjoyed seeing everyone again and meeting the new teachers. I was able to hold things together until I got down to my room.

I am so blessed to work in that environment. It is filled with so many wonderful people who not only have comforting words to share, but also comforting shoulders to cry on.

The reason I am posting this today is because I was so encouraged by the words I just read of another mother who recently went through a similar situation. She calls it "A Little Slice of Heaven." I hope she won't mind, but I am including a link to her blog:
http://www.tstapes.blogspot.com/

She discusses the Hebrews passage about running a race and compares it to the Olympic runners. I love the way she puts things, especially this part:

"They start ready. They have trained and prepared for this one moment. Their one chance at Olympic gold. Head down, the gun fires. I watch as they keep that posture, their head down, until they reach their stride. It is almost as if they push through the resistance that the air presses against them... fighting opposition and pressing forward with power. Then their head comes up, chest high, and they run their race.
I can't help but think about how this reminds me of us in our faith. We start out with our knees bowed and our head down. We come humbly before our God ready, yet intimidated a bit at the race before us. He calls us, gives us what we need to persevere, and we start our race fighting opposition as it seems to consume us. But our head comes up, our eyes become fixed upon Christ and we find our stride. We run our race. . ."

If you have time to check it out, I believe you will be blessed by her story.

I was also very touched by an email I received from Sharon yesterday. She is so wise and the love of Christ shines radiantly in her. She talked about one of my favorite passages in the Bible, the passage where Paul talks about God being able to use us in our weakness. That always brings me comfort and hope that God can use me, even when I so often feel inadequate.

As I said before, I believe God is helping me see that we all have burdens to carry in this world. We have great joys, but also great sorrows. We need each other to get through. My prayer is that I could be for others what they have been for me – someone filled with compassion who listens, comforts, prays, and always has a loving shoulder to cry on. In other words, “Jesus with skin on.”