This Chapter

Today is my husbands last JV game in his first year as the head coach and I don't know that he has any idea how proud I am of him.  At 15 I didn't really have any idea about what kind of man he would become.  I never would have imagined that 15 years later we would still be us and have these wonderful lives together.  I also had no idea about the many ways that he would touch people's lives and the influence he would have.  I am so thankful that he is here to give our girls the same love and guidance, maybe a little more delicately that he gives his boys and his students.  He is such a caring and dedicated man.  I know that this has been a challenging experience for him.  I know there have been some long nights spent wondering what more he could do and what else he could try to make them better.  The way that he is concerned not only with the game but the character of the young men in his care.  The tenderness he shows as he draws the hard line and as he cares for these boys on and off the field is astounding.  I don't care about the record they come away from this season with.  What I do care about is, that even though the long hours drive me nuts, he is becoming a better man.  These boys make him better.  Our girls make him better.  When we were kids and first started dating I knew he was a good guy, but I didn't the man he would become now and I wouldn't change a minute of it.  He balances me out and partners with me in the trenches of the preschool and toddler years.  This man makes my life bearable.  He will touch lives and I'm just waiting to see it.

I don't know how to feel

Today has been a hard day to top off a difficult week.  This difficult week has involved some parent conferences, the craziness of the end of the quarter, some "spring fever" for my students, and the culmination of frustrations that comes with being in the third month of football season.  In teaching the mood ebbs and flows quite frequently.  Frustration can be quite common, with the kids, with myself, and with anyone and everyone else.  This week has culminated in today.  Today started out hard.  I got frustrated with my husband when through no fault of his own he was not as helpful to me while we got ready for school as I would like.  Then my students were hard to handle and I received a couple of sets of upsetting news today.
Today I feel like my heart has been taken out of my chest and broken.  The news that we have lost a former student of mine was shocking and tragic.  I hadn't thought of that young man in years and when I heard the news images came flooding back to me.  When I think of him all I see is that big grin on his face.  I remember him being a handful, but really what stands out to me is that big smile that I used to see on her face.  Hearing the news shook me.  He's not the first former student of mine to be lost and like I said I hadn't thought of him in years, but it still stung.  In shock "That sucks" was all I could think to text back to my husband.  I still don't know what else to say or how to feel.  Much later in the day I got some other news.  News that made me concerned for someone close to me.  The feelings of anger and unfairness that it brought up almost had me in tears.  I know that life is not supposed to be fair and God never said we wouldn't suffer in fact He said the opposite that we need to be prepared to suffer for Him.  That is all well and good, but when you have to watch so much pain and heartache come to someone that you hold so dear it is hard to understand and to wrap your mind around it.  Before I left work today I bowed my head and prayed my head in my hands at my desk and just began to pray.  To pray that God would help me and those in these terrible situations.  My heart cried out to say that I was pretty sure I just couldn't handle any more.
I don't know whats going to happen tomorrow, next week, or even five minutes for now.  What I do know is that my heart hurts, not for myself, but for those near to me.  I know that when I can't handle it that I am going to pray.  So far prayer has at least gotten me through the next moment and then the next, and then some more of those moments. I don't know where it will take me next, but prayer is the only thing that has gotten me this for so continue to pray I shall.