~Thanksgiving~

Long ago I was a single mom with a precious 5-year old son.  As a newly divorced and 30-year old woman living on a Kansas teacher's salary, times were lean and scary for a while.   I remember being thankful once that we had just enough toilet paper to last until payday, and yet another time that the gas in the car was sufficient to make it to school one more trip without having to fill up. A quick check of my bank account balance told me that it was either gasoline or medicine for a young boy's ear infection, one not both.  I never forgot those days long ago now that seemed bleak sometimes, and what it took to survive.  Neither of us perished because we went without and I would like to think that I became a better and much wiser person because of the experience.  When I see others struggling today, especially the young folks with small children in tow, one thing in my mind is for certain.

I understand.

Been there.  Experienced that.

Would hate to think of doing it again.

On this Thanksgiving Day, Mike and I have so much to be thankful for.  2018 has presented its share of challenges in our household.  When the hardware store here in town closed up, Mike and several other good folks lost their jobs.  It was such a shame to see it have to end.  As the store manager, Mike took such pride in all that he did there.  It was a great place for the locals as well as people from the surrounding areas to come to and purchase whatever they needed.  For well over a month, Mike was without a job and we made it on his unemployment checks until a new job could be secured.  He never complained about anything and on those days when I would become super anxious about the prospects of what life would end up being like, he always assured me that he would find something.  Thankfully, he did.  

As a teacher now at Grandfield Elementary School in Oklahoma, my heart is full of thankfulness.  I get to spend my days with an awesome group of second graders who come each day to school, ready to learn something new.  I love the Grandfield community with everything that I have in me.  Fine people live there and they want the best for their kids and grandkids.  When Mike and I made the decision that this would be our last year along the Red River, it was with sadness that I knew I would have to relinquish my position at the end of the school year in May.  Our decision was based in large part upon economics.  Oklahoma school teachers are among the very lowest paid educators in the nation, and at this point in time I need to go where the pay is better.  The small rural districts, just like Grandfield, are doing their very best to take care of their teachers.  There is only so much that they can do without some type of intervention from the state legislature.  I commend my district for doing everything that they can each year with a very limited amount of funding.  I would never trade my two years there for anything.  It's been that awesome of an experience for me.  Every teacher should have the opportunity to teach for Grandfield Public Schools.  I'm praying for a new second grade teacher for them when I no longer am there. 

Where will life lead us?   I have no answer for that question.  Mike and I are surely at the point in time in which great faithfulness is required.  I look back at all the places where the Lord has sent me to teach, each one specially chosen for me because of something I could do there or a child and their family who needed me to make a difference for them.  From Olathe, Colorado to here along the Red River, each stop has not been an accident and I am thankful for them all.  Now something awaits us farther north and back home again. Somewhere out there another group of kids is waiting for me to get there and on this Thanksgiving Day of 2018, I do the only thing I can until I find them.

With a very thankful heart, I wait.

We saw many sights in beautiful Colorado together. 

I cannot imagine all the places that are left to find with one another.

I'm thankful for Mike and his undying love this Thanksgiving Day.