Today is my last day as Research Assistant at Woodmen Valley Chapel. I'm going to miss working alongside the great staff here. It's great to leave on good terms, and have people telling me how much they will miss having me around (whether they mean it or not). It is the end of a significant chapter of my life. WVC was the place of many firsts. This was my first full-time, paid position. It was my first experience with benefits. It was the first time I was paid to stay home on a snowy day. It was my first experience with paid vacation. It has been a fun ride.
As I look forward to teaching the sixth grade at The Classical Academy next year, I'm excited for all God will do in that place. I'm reminded to pour myself into those kids and those days without letting past frustrations or future hopes cloud the moment. The task for this next chapter is to make it the fullest, richest time I can. To count my days in the sixth grade and anticipate the end from the beginning.
For some reason, this transition has also caused me to think about heaven in a new way too. Whenever I want to ponder heaven I love to turn to the end of C.S. Lewis's
The Last Battle. No one says it quite like him:
[At the end the children are sad to have to return home from Narnia once again.]
And Aslan speaks to them,
"You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be."
Lucy said, "We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often."
"No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?"
Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.
"There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are-as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands-died. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream has ended; this is morning."
And as he spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.I want to teach sixth grade with this continually before my mind. Teaching the sixth grade is "training for reigning," as Dallas Willard says. I'm transforming into the kind of person that Christ might dare let reign with Him for eternity. I can't wait! Can anything be as encouraging to the Christian as proper perspective? I think not...
I will miss being among you Woodmen staff!
