Never Underestimate By Melissa Fennigan

Never Underestimate

 

            For five years I taught in a school district that was an hour away from my home. I spent two hours a day driving. Three Wednesdays out of the month the school had mandatory staff meetings that lasted an hour and a half. That put me home at sixty-thirty on those nights.

Needless to say, I was pretty unhappy. I knew I was blessed to find a teaching job inMichigan at all but I wanted something closer to home.

In 2011, during my prayer time I felt God press on my heart to pray in faith that He would remove me from this position and give me something so I would be home every day when my children got off the bus.

So I prayed.

As the end of the school year rolled around a position in a small farming community opened up only twenty minutes from my home. This position was part-time but after discussing supplementing the income with piano lessons and voice lessons, my husband and I agreed I should apply.

I landed an interview and was offered the position the same day. I should have been overjoyed.

Before I went for this interview another position opened up in my children’s school. I had dreamed of this job since I was handed my teaching certificate and it was full-time. How could God not want it for me? I would be teaching my own children and the children in my community.

Prior to the interview for this second job a tragedy struck our small town. A shooting that took the life of a mother of a boy who attended my children’s school, the school I wanted to teach in. I prayed, “Oh Lord, I want to be a part of that child’s life, I want to pray over him when I see him. I want him to know there is hope.”

Finally, in August I had the second interview.

I did not get the job.

I was crushed. How could they not hire someone who was invested in the community? Who would do a better job than the mother of children who attend the school?

School was about to start and I went to work in my classroom in the school I was hired to teach. I have a friend who works there was well. As we were talking about the students she shared with me something amazing.

The boy whose mother had been shot attended that school until last year when they moved to my town. Now that his mother was no longer living he was returning to the school, my school.

Only God.

Not only am I home every day for my children, I am the boy’s teacher. I pray for his life every time I see him. I send him smiles he doesn’t understand.

More than anything I sense a holiness when I am in the same room with him because I know God orchestrated it all. I believe God put the desire in my heart to be a part of this young man’s life. I thought that meant I would get my dream job, but God knew it meant His will would be done.

Never underestimate the power of where you teach. God has placed each of us in our schools for a reason, to touch many lives, or maybe even one. Isn’t that what Jesus did for us? He would have hung on the cross even if it meant saving only you.

As you step into your classroom never underestimate the reason God has you there.

 

Melissa Finnegan is a writer, worship leader and music teacher. She has been married to Patrick for fourteen and a half years. They have two beautiful children. Melissa believes everyone has a Genesis 5020 and they should share their story with the world. If you want to hear some amazing stories about God’s goodness visit her blog: www.5020genesis.wordpress.com