Crossroads

Over the 56 years of my life I've faced many crossroads.  Sometimes I've chosen well and other times I've learned from making distinctly poor choices.  In recent weeks I've reached yet another crossroads in my life and have come to recognize something about my own process in these challenges.  First, when the goal I am working toward is something I really want I can be determined (read: stubborn) to the point of self destruction about not giving up.  I can rationalize that I, "haven't worked hard enough, haven't tried long enough, or haven't tried every option"  I look back at the struggle and see every effort toward progress I made that didn't pan out and I tell myself I've made "mistakes" and if I could only keep trying long enough to not make those mistakes everything would be great. Next, when I finally hit the wall (read crash and burn) I spend a great deal of time beating myself up about not making it.  My first marriage was this kind of an experience.  Out of respect for the dead I will not chronicle the details here except to say that he was a loving, sweet and funny guy who had an illness far too damaging for either of us to cope with.  I lasted 11 years in that marriage.  When I looked back at the experience I beat myself up for a long time for not making different choices about it.  But from that marriage I gained some of my most precious spiritual gifts.  I learned to understand people who are not able to be rational at that moment.  He was the one diligently seeking to find the true church of Jesus Christ and he invited the missionaries into our home.  I responded badly to that invitation and it was because of Dan I continued to hear their message.  I learned the truth of the gospel because he wanted so much to know it.  Without that relationship I may never have known the joy of belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. From that marriage I was also blessed with 3 of the most beautiful, smartest, and most loving children ever given to a parent.  I firmly believe that each challenge we meet and learn from is followed by a blessing that matches the scope of the sorrow you endured with an equal portion of joy.  My second marriage is such a relationship.  Monte is the epitome of common sense and rational behavior.  He is my reward. (Makes me wonder why he is saddled with me but it's not my problem ;-)

Other crossroads have been when I was working on my bachelor's degree I had decided that I wanted to be a Child Life Specialist and I threw my whole heart into that- serving a 3 month unpaid internship.  I spent long hours translating medical procedures into Spanish that could (hopefully) be understood by Spanish only speaking children so that they could be prepared for the precedure and reduce the trauma.  It turned out the hospital setting was not really a good fit for me.  I was so sad and convinced myself that I hadn't managed to gain any marketable skills (duh!) 

I went to work in an elementary school and discovered that working with children was my gift.  The Lord had been aiming me at teaching since I joined the church.  I had served many teaching positions with both children and adults but always found myself returning to teaching children.  I also spent the next 15 years working with elementary children, obtaining degrees in teaching at the elementary & middle school levels and in special education.

Now I've reached yet another crossroads.  My special education license is working with emotionally and behaviorally disabled students which is what I have done for the last 10 years but I have hit the wall now.  The burnout rate is high in my profession and it is now my turn.  I am taking a medical leave of absence to figure out that part of my crash and burn has been to feel that I have failed.  I failed my students, my husband, and myself.  It has taken me a full month to clear the fugue enough to recognize that 10 years of teaching represents a success not a failure.  It is just time to choose my next path.  Now that the clouds are clearing I remember that the Lord guided me to where I needed to be on multiple occasions.  If I keep my promises to Him he will prepare a way.