Learning Lessons the Hard Way

Teaching. It’s what I do. During the week I am disguised as a high school teacher and on Sundays I teach a Sunday school class for women of all ages. My life is consumed with planning lessons and making sure my students comprehend whatever concept I’m presenting. High school is easy. I have state-mandated standards that I am required to follow to assure all students are being taught the same curriculum.

Sunday school is a little different though. Even though we have a set curriculum, teaching the Bible leaves a lot of room for life application. And life application is best taught when one has life experience to back it up.

For ten years I have been in leadership in women’s ministry - leading, teaching, and writing Bible studies. During those years I have poured my heart out to women encouraging them to keep their priorities in order – God first, husband second, children third, and then on to work, ministry, and other interests.

All the while I was teaching other women what to do, I’m not sure I did a very good job of practicing what I was preaching! You see, God has taken me down a path the last 3 years that I could have never envisioned, nor would I have gone if He had told me where we were going. My family experienced the economic crisis before anyone even mentioned the term “recession.” My husband lost two businesses in the process and our marriage was going right down with it.

After surviving one crisis after another, with each one individually being a major crisis by anyone’s standards, and making it by the grace of God, I have come to see God’s hand in the darkest of the nights. God faithfully provided financially for our family. He very intentionally placed mentors to encourage and guide me, and strong believers to intercede in prayer in the very midst of our shattered lives. Scriptures that I had known for years came alive as I claimed God’s promises with every breath I took.

Looking back over the past 3 years, I can see that God has taught me volumes about stewardship, forgiveness, and total dependence on Him, just to name a few lessons. Probably the hardest lesson I have had to learn is that I was not doing the very thing I not only knew to do, but taught others to do. We can’t always learn everything sitting in a Bible study. Sometimes we have to have the heart and physical experiences to go along with the head knowledge. By walking the road we have walked, my eyes have been opened to the times I missed ministering to my husband. My heart was opened to the times I placed ministry ahead of my husband and children.

I’m not going to back off from serving and using the gifts God has planted in me, but I am going to get it right this time. God is teaching me to re-evaluate and to be very intentional in where I serve – to balance meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of my family and to passionately fulfill my role in furthering the kingdom through teaching. When the lesson is all summed up, the final assessment is that I have realized to be the most effective and influential teacher, I simply first have to be a willing student.