At the beginning of December 2018 I completed a 17 month locum teaching contract. 6 months before that I experienced burn out after taking too much onto my plate and found myself in a wilderness place, struggling to get through daily life with joy, and finding life in general a challenge. Knowing that my contract was ending, I updated my CV and started sending it out to schools during the second half of last year. I sent it to schools in Waterfall, Kloof and Westville. I received not one response! I started questioning the Lord, doubting myself and my abilities and asking questions such as “why do I love teaching? ” “what is it that makes teaching the amazing profession it is?” “Why does nobody want to employ me, or even want to meet me in an interview? ”
During this time, The lord gave me a picture of life as a chess board. He is the chess player and we are the pieces on the board…a knight, a castle, whatever. We as the pieces on the chess board can only see our immediate surroundings, we can only see the part of the chess board that we are on and see those other pieces along side or next to us. The Lord can see EVERYTHING. He, as the chess player, can see all the pieces, can see the opposition and how the teams are advancing towards each other. He can see the whole picture. And that’s how it is with life. We see our limited view of our circumstances and surroundings, but He sees it all and is busy planning the next thing for us to do, the next move as a piece on the chess board of life to make. And so I surrended into His hands. I relinquished my fight of searching and applying for jobs and made the decision to leave it in His hands.
The stress and tension of wandering through this wilderness place put such pressure on my neck and back and I have been living with great pain and a back spasm that appears every now and again. My husband therefore decided to look into getting me a new pillow and was researching various options online. Today I met up with a friend and as I arrived she handed me a memory foam pillow, saying, “this is for you”. I was completely blown away. Her obedience to the Lords prompting her to buy it for me has resulted in immense blessing for me! (She had no idea my husband had been looking into one for me) Another friend I bumped into today asked how things were going, and my reply was that Im taking a bit of time to rest and her reply was, ” a season of RESToration!” My spirit agrees and so for now, I’m going to enjoy my pillow, take advantage of the season of RESToration and daily choose to TRUST and OBEY the Lord.
hope of heart 