Psalm 42:8
“By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me…”
My Dad. I worship you with all my heart. Thank-you for giving me life, abundant life. I give you my whole heart today.
Come my daughter, I love you -you are Mine. Caroline, I have something for you today.
Father please tell me -with all that I am I want to know what it is.
The time is right; fix your eyes on me.
Okay Dad. Help me remember to do this in every moment, every day. Help me not miss what you are trying to do in my heart. Help my feet to go in the right direction as I fix my eyes on you. Help me take the steps you want me to take as I follow your lead.
I will help you my darling.
Reflection:
I feel like I have so much to say today but I don’t know how to begin! I’m reminded of the truth about what real love is and how we need to be authentic and keep our heart open with each other in order to be truly know; and when others love us in this place, this is real love. So I’m going to tell you more about my childhood:) When I was in grade two I had a teacher that I was really afraid of, so I missed as many school days as I possibly could. I faked being sick and stayed home with my mom. Missing as many days as I did, didn’t help me learn what the other kids were learning, so I began to fall behind academically and by the end of the school year I failed grade two. I felt a lot of shame that all my friends got to go to grade three and I was left behind. The teacher I had for my second year in grade two was a really good teacher and I began to catch up. My grade four teacher was the nicest teacher I ever had and I excelled in her class. One day after school she taught me and a few of my friends the math she was planning to teach the following day, and this gave me a lot of confidence. There was one time where she said she’d take the first three students who memorized the times table first, to a restaurant in town, so I was determined to be one of those people and I was! My family wasn’t very well off, so if we’d ever go anywhere to eat it would be McDonalds. Going to a restaurant with her did something in my heart and probably affirmed me in ways that had never been affirmed before. After grade four my siblings and I went to a private school just south of Kleefeld, and it was about a year after that that we moved to the country about five miles from Steinbach. My oldest brother began working there as a teacher, so he’d drive us all there every day. Before we began our studies, we all needed to be assessed, so for a whole week I think we needed to fill in the circles of standardized tests. I was so bored that in order to go through it more quickly I began colouring in random circles. So when we got the test results back I was put back into grade two! Yep, my heart broke and I was so ashamed. The lie that I was already believing from the enemy that I was dumb was affirmed and I began thinking that this is who I am. In this school all our desks were in one big room and had dividers between them. Four years later most of my subject areas were in level five, a few in level six when I had completely lost hope and quit school -I would have completed grade eight that school year if we hadn’t began private school. The following September my older sister had convinced me to go back to public school, so I began grade nine in the middle school in Steinbach. Because I missed grade 6-8, they put me in the easiest classes, and by the end of the school year one of my teachers told me that I wouldn’t need to take the easiest classes in grade 10, which would be at the SRSS. So most of them in high school were the regular classes except math. I graduated in 92, which would also have been the same year I would have graduated if my education wasn’t interrupted. I got married June 14, 1997, and a few years later I started taking math classes at the Adult Education Center downtown Wpg. where I took grade 10, 11, and 12 Applied math. I had really good teachers and enjoyed algebra very much! It wasn’t a requirement but I wanted to do it for myself. I began taking University classes right after that and graduated with a bachelor of Arts and Education in 2008. I had to take one math class for my Arts degree, so I registered for a math class that would be a continuation from grade 12 Applied math, but the professor was from another country and so I couldn’t understand him very well and I couldn’t follow the math that he was doing on the board. So I dropped that class and took history of calculus the next term which I barely passed! Anyway, going into my old elementary school to teach is still special to me because I also have good memories there. Changing the subject, some years ago I filled out a questionnaire that would tell me my temperament: In Inclusion: Phlegmatic Choleric; in Control: Supine; and in Affection: Sanguine. Now that I’ve gone through so much with the Lord in the last year or so, I’d like to redo this questionnaire and see if there are any differences. As I’m reading about them in more detail, I don’t totally agree with everything but I think generally it seems accurate:)
Changing the subject again, when I was 30 I began to get my teeth straightened, and my orthodontist straightened my teeth using retainers. So by the time I was 35 I was so glad to finally have straight teeth! Though since then I’ve not gone back to get new retainers and I broke my lower one which I wasn’t able to use anymore, and later I also broke my top one. Now I only have half of the top retainer left which I use every night, and my teeth are slowly going back to where they were before:( I went to a different orthodontist to see if I can get new retainers and straighten them a bit more again, but she said that because my gums have pulled back when I had my teeth straightened, I need to get that fixed first. So I called to see what’s all involved with that and it’ll cost so much without dental insurance. Anyway, that’s my sad story about my teeth:( Yup, this is me! I’m so deeply thankful for my Dad’s unconditional love! And the good thing about having flaws is that it keeps me humble.☺️