my boss knows i can lie.

i slept fitfully last night. i woke up at 2am, and my mind was kept awake by desperate prayers until 3.

i woke up again at 6 for good, and my mind did not stop praying the same prayer until 8:30.

"please don't let our room get picked, God. please."

over, and over again. on my half of the school there are 7 classrooms, and we knew that two would be picked for the evaluation.

ours was picked last year. it was my second week on the job. i wasn't trained. i had never heard of "three star evaluation" before. there's a rule that says new teachers (defined as 2 weeks or less) don't have to be evaluated. but the old director saw no reason to play that card.

we did very, very badly.

some comments have been made in the past year that suggest i would have been fired if i hadn't been new.

so for the past year, i have been working hard to prove that i'm a good employee. it has run me ragged.

me and the other teacher in my room have been working VERY hard to get ready for the evaluation today, even though we knew we might not get picked. we hoped we wouldn't, but we wanted to be ready.

so that's the history that explains the desperate prayers in the middle of the night. the same prayer being cried incessantly for almost two hours. i know how difficult this evaluation is. it is no joke. someone stands in our room for 4 hours, writing down every move we make. it's intense. i did not want to go through that again, especially since i did so bad last year. and especially since our jobs were on the line. i'm not making that up. she told us in a meeting that anyone who scored less than a certain point value might not have their job anymore.

stress.



we got picked. our room got picked, again.

two years in a row.

i cussed when i found out. a few times, actually. in front of children. it was not one of my shining moments.

i'm still processing this day. i keep replaying it in my mind. i know there are things i did wrong, but i don't know their point value. it wasn't a matter of "oh, i don't feel like doing that." there are just some things that are really hard to do. there were a few times i had to choose between two options that would both result in me losing points. it's complicated...

and i didn't ask God "why" at first, because i was in panic mode. but really...why? WHY? why did we get picked two years in a row? why did we get picked last year when He knew we would do bad? why did we get picked this year when He knows i could lose my job?

i don't remember ever really asking God "why" about anything before. it's not what i do. i don't think there's anything wrong with it. people in the Bible do it. i'm more of a "deal with the situation as it is" kind of a person. sometimes that's good. sometimes it's not. but that's how i am.

but today i asked why.

today i wondered why.

i've been reading this story of moses and the israelites, and really relating to it. God delivered them. they were sinners, and He helped them. i won't recap the story. but i've been waiting to declare "God parted my red sea! they passed over my room, and i did not get evaluated!" but i can't declare that.

as i was sitting there after the evaluation, i remembered...God cares more about His glory than He does my comfort. He cares about my life, my job, my ability to pay rent, and all the details of my life. but He didn't rescue Israel for their sake. He did it for the sake of His own Name, His own glory. and they were caught up in that amazing story, and experienced grace and blessings because of His desire to display His glory. it wasn't about them, and it's not about me. (uhhh...i just summarized every john piper book...)

if i expect God to answer prayer because it would make me feel relief or happiness, then of course i'm left being angry that "something like this" could happen. but if i expect Him to act based on what brings Him glory, then feeling angry about today isn't an option. i get to sit here knowing that this is the day God wanted me to have. this is the experience He wanted me to live. this is the story that brings Him glory. (ugh, rhyming.) that's better than a sense of relief that i don't have to be evaluated. as least i'm trying to see it that way.

an unfortunate but funny side note:

after the kids were asleep, i had to be interviewed by the evaluator. she asked me like...3 pages of questions about stuff. i had this list of questions ahead of time to study. for like a month now. not the answers, mind you. but the list of questions. isn't that great. ANYWAY

she threw a couple random ones in there, and my boss was sitting there with me because she felt it would make me less nervous. (?)

random question number one:

"i saw that you have a pet fish. how do you incorporate that in the daily activities?"

lie number one:

"we talk to him throughout the day. but sometimes we take him to the science table and talk about how he swims, and maybe look at him with the magnifying glass."

random question number two:

"i saw that there was a plant hanging from the window. do you do anything with it?"

lie number two:

"sometimes we let them water it. and we talk about how plants grow."

both of my answers met the science requirements, but they're not true. we just got the plant and fish a couple weeks ago. afterwards, my boss came in my room and was laughing about those questions, because i didn't even hestitate before i answered.

i don't make a habit out of telling lies to my boss. i rarely talk to her more than 3 minutes a day, and always in 30 second fragments. there's not much time to lie. there's time to beg for more glue, or to ask if maybe i can leave on time today because i have somewhere to be. but still...i'm not sure how i feel about her knowing i can B.S. my way through life if need be.

i'm not sure how i feel about it either. i came up with those answers quick. i am so unaware of my own ability to sin sometimes. that's not the best thing ever.

so, there's all that.